Monday, June 21, 2021

What is this hunk of ice?

EAU CLAIRE (WQOW) -- You were probably wondering, "what in the world is that?" when News 18 told you about the 12-pound ice chunk that put a hole through the bedroom ceiling of an Elk Mound home back in May.

UW-Eau Claire chemists aren't 100-percent sure what this icy object is and now, they're digging into what that ice chunk is made of with one simple question... What is this thing?

Meteorologist Justin Esterly went over to UWEC's chemistry lab to see how they plan to solve this mystery.

Back in late May, a 12 pound chunk of ice came crashing through an Elk Mound family's bedroom ceiling causing thousands of dollars in damage.

“We think, it's likely to be a megacryometeor,” said Chemistry & Biochemistry Professor Dr. James Boulter. “These have been observed around the world to a tune of maybe a dozen or so a year.”

Sounds like they're going to do some isotopic analysis on the organic contents of this megacryometeor. All things considered, I'd rather not have interesting scientific problems crash through the roof of my house. 

1 comment:

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20