We will all agree that science systematically studies our world through observation, reasoning, and experimentation to develop laws, principles, and facts that explain it. I got this definition from a combined reading of different definitions of science. The job of science is to describe the world through principles, facts, and theories. When discoveries are made, they must be repeatable, observable, and verifiable. If they are not, then they are not science.
With science, exploration could be as good as speculation. In our tiny world, we have had many events that we had to learn and study to understand, and one of them is the Kentucky meat fall of 1876. In March of 1876, on a sunny afternoon, chunks of meat started to rain, some of them small and some of them as big as the size of a hand. Some people even tasted the meat to be certain if it was venison or mutton.
Some people believed it was Nostoc which is a bacteria covered in jelly-like membrane which could have come with water but it was raining only meat with no water. Scientists later discovered that it was actually meat (animal lung tissue, muscle, and cartilage), and in 1876, Professor L.D. Kastebine showed that the phenomenon was a result of projectile vomiting by vultures. The theory explains that it was a kettle of vultures flying over Kentucky that vomited the meat they had consumed because the meat disturbed their stomach.
Before, during and after earthquakes, people have reported seeing light in the sky, and scientists have been able to explain this phenomenon. It is referred to as earthquake light. This light can occur in different forms including lighting from the ground, blue flames, and so on. It was a mystery for hundreds of years until 2014 when scientist studied 65 earthquakes where people reported seeing light and the culprit to blame for the lights are electrical activities from certain types of volcanic rock as a result of lots of stress leading to the release of electric charge as chemical bonds within the compounds in the rock break releasing charged oxygen. When the charge burst out of the rock to the surface of the earth, they ionized the air causing flashes of light.
Will-o'-the-wisp is one phenomenon that you might have seen in movies where light come out of the ground looking like a ghost or soul escaping. Some people even say that it is troubled spirit disturbing and confusing people. In actual sense, they are common in marshes, swamps, and cemeteries. They are bluish light that drifts over these places and when a closer view is taken, it disappears.
Science says that it is caused by spontaneous combustion which is as a result of gases mixture which includes methane, carbon dioxide, and phosphine compounds reacting with oxygen leading to ignition. These gases are likely produced by bacteria living in the soil that break down organic matter which becomes the will-o-the-wisp when they reach the surface where they can react with oxygen.
There are a lot of mysteries, and science has done well to explain loads of them. While there are a lot of phenomena, understanding why and how they happen is very important to love forward.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1876/03/10/81687268.pdf
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-great-kentucky
https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=Rv2fAAAAMAAJ&pg
https://archive.org/stream/americanjournal163unkngoog
https://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/geol/will.htm
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267817536_On_the_track_of_the_will-o'-the-wisp
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140106
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/ssoa-ell122013.php
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/srl/article-abstract/85/1/159/349010
https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/willowisp.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852401000323
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0146638095000216
