Star jelly is a gelatinous substance that allegedly falls to the ground during meteor showers. Paranormal enthusiasts believe it has an extraterrestrial origin, but scientists believe it is a terrestrial substance, such as slime mold or nostoc. Meteors almost never hit the ground, and molecular clouds are an unlikely source of the material. Our solar system has a greater density of matter than any prestellar molecular cloud, and there is no dust in the form of jelly.
Star jelly is a semi-mysterious gelatinous substance alleged to have deposited on the ground during meteor showers. The star jelly phenomenon has been observed since at least 1641, and probably much earlier. In Welsh, star jelly is known as pwdre sêr (‘star rot’).
A lengthy 1979 article in the paranormal Fate magazine stated that this substance has an extraterrestrial origin and constitutes “cellular organic matter” that exists as “prestellar molecular clouds” that travel through space. Some paranormal enthusiasts have drawn a connection between star jelly and the idea of atmospheric beasts, calling the remains of these animals jelly.
Scientists are extremely skeptical, favoring a terrestrial origin for the substance. The scientific explanation for star jelly is that stargazers witness a meteor shower, then run in the direction they think they’ve fallen, only to find pre-existing slime on the ground, whether it’s slime mold, nostoc, or lichen. Nostoc, in particular, a freshwater cyanobacterium, has the potential to rapidly form colonies in open ground, appearing as a mysterious slime. Amusingly, nostoc is edible, being high in protein and vitamin C, and is grown in China, Java, and Japan for human consumption. So the “star jelly” can be edible.
In fact, meteors almost never hit the ground. Most burn tens of miles above the surface. Keep in mind that meteors are usually made of rock or even iron – if they had a gel-like element, they would be incinerated by the outermost layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. When it became obvious that the “star jelly” couldn’t be linked to meteor showers, the paranormals tried to link it to molecular clouds, an even less likely source of the material.
Molecular clouds really exist: they are regularly observed by astronomers. However, these molecular clouds are often very diffuse, thousands or millions of times more diffuse than air, not to mention many hundreds or thousands of light-years away. Any appreciably sized molecular cloud would be observed by astronomers blocking out starlight long before it reaches Earth. Even small molecular clouds would have been observed by astronauts on the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station, but none have been sighted. Our solar system actually has a density of matter greater than that of any prestellar molecular cloud, as our solar system is the result of a molecular cloud that has collapsed under its own gravity. Our solar system is littered with dust, but none in the form of jelly.
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