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Red rain in Kerala

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Recent History

   Red rain in Kerala was a phenomenon observed sporadically from 25 July
   to 23 September 2001 in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Heavy
   downpours occurred in which the rain was primarily red, staining
   clothes and appearing like blood. Yellow, green, and black rains were
   also reported.

   It was initially suspected that the rains were coloured by fallout from
   a hypothetical meteor burst, but the Government of India commissioned a
   study which found the rains had been coloured by spores from a locally
   prolific aerial algae. Then in early 2006, the coloured rains of Kerala
   suddenly rose to worldwide attention after media reports of a
   conjecture that the coloured particles are extraterrestrial cells,
   proposed by Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar of the Mahatma Gandhi
   University in Kottayam.

The rain

   Kottayam district in Kerala, which experienced the most intense red
   rainfall
   Enlarge
   Kottayam district in Kerala, which experienced the most intense red
   rainfall

   The coloured rain of Kerala first fell on 25 July 2001, in the
   districts of Kottayam and Idukki in the southern part of the state.
   Some reports suggested that other colours of rain were also seen. Many
   more occurrences of the red rain were reported over the following 10
   days, and then with diminishing frequency until late September.

   According to locals, the first coloured rain was preceded by a loud
   thunderclap and flash of light, and followed by groves of trees
   shedding shriveled grey "burnt" leaves. Shriveled leaves and the
   disappearance and sudden formation of wells were also reported around
   the same time in the area.

   The colouration of the rain was due to red particles in suspension in
   the rain water, and when it fell, the red rain was at times as strongly
   coloured as blood. It typically fell over small areas, no more than a
   few square kilometres in size, and was sometimes so localised that
   normal rain could be falling just a few metres away from red rain. Red
   rainfalls typically lasted less than 20 minutes.

Initial report

   Shortly after the first fall of the red rain, it was reported in the
   media that scientists at the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS)
   and the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) had
   determined that the particles colouring the rainwater were some type of
   spore. Then in November of 2001, commissioned by the Government of
   India's Department of Science & Technology, the CESS and TBGRI released
   a report which concluded that Kerala's rains were coloured by algae
   spores, which were successfully grown in medium into lichen-forming
   algæ of the Trentepohlia genus. This algae was found to be associated
   with lichens in the trees in Changanacherry area.

   The report also stated that there was no dust of meteoric, volcanic or
   desert origin present in the rainwater, and that the colour of the
   rainwater was not due to any dissolved gases or pollutants. The report
   suggested that heavy rains in Kerala in the weeks preceding the red
   rains could have caused the widespread growth of lichens, which had
   given rise to a large quantity of spores in the atmosphere. However, it
   found no definite mechanism for the apparent extraordinary dispersal of
   the suspect spores, nor for the uptake of the suspect spores into
   clouds.

   The authors of the report analysed some sediment collected from the red
   rains, using a combination of ion-coupled plasma mass spectrometry,
   atomic absorption spectrometry and wet chemical methods. The major
   elements found are listed below.

   CAPTION: Major elements present in the dried sediment

          Element Weight %
          Al      1.00
          K       0.26
          Mg      1.48
          Ca      2.52
          Na      0.49
          Fe      0.61
          Si      7.50
          C       51.00
          P       0.08

   The presence of aluminium and the very low content of phosphorus is
   puzzling because aluminium is not ordinarily found in living cells,
   while normally about 3% phosphorus can be expected in the dry weight of
   biological cells.

Conventional theories

   History records many instances of unusual objects falling with the rain
   — in 2000, in an example of raining animals, a small waterspout in the
   North Sea sucked up a school of fish a mile off shore, depositing them
   shortly afterwards on Great Yarmouth in the United Kingdom. Coloured
   rain is by no means rare, and can often be explained by the transport
   of dust from desert regions in high pressure areas, where it mixes with
   water droplets. One such case occurred in England in 1903, when dust
   was carried from the Sahara and fell with rain in February of that
   year.

   At first, the red rain in Kerala was attributed to the same effect,
   with dust from the deserts of Arabia initially the suspect. LIDAR
   observations had detected a cloud of dust in the atmosphere near Kerala
   in the days preceding the outbreak of the red rain . However, this
   hypothesis could not explain certain aspects of the red rain, such as
   its sudden onset and gradual decline over two months, and its
   localisation to Kerala despite atmospheric conditions that should have
   seen it occur in neighbouring states as well.

   Another theory is that the rain contained mammalian blood, a large
   flock of bats having been killed at high altitude, perhaps by a meteor.
   Some bat species in India live in very large communities. However, no
   bat wings or other remains were found raining from the sky, and no
   known natural process would separate the red blood cells from white
   cells, platelets and other blood components. Red blood cells
   disintegrate rapidly in regular rainwater because of osmosis, but this
   was not evident with the red particles. Furthermore it would have to be
   a sizeable quantity of bats to cover a province of India.

   More plausibly, the suggestion has been made that the red raindust was
   the result of incomplete incineration of chemical waste at the Eloor
   industrial zone, the particles being formed from microparticles of
   fly-ash or clay which coalesced around an aerosol of partly burnt
   organics as the incinerator plume cooled. The chemical composition of
   the raindust matches that of burnt organics plus clay; the fallout
   pattern matches with the prevailing winds; and various organic
   chemicals will form cellular structures which replicate in the presence
   of clay.

Extraterrestrial hypothesis

   Another hypothesis was proposed in 2003 by Godfrey Louis and A.
   Santhosh Kumar, two scientists at Mahatma Gandhi University in
   Kottayam, Kerala. Having collected samples of the rainwater at many
   locations, Louis and Kumar claimed that the red particles did not look
   like dust but instead appeared to be biological cells. Chemical
   analyses indicate that they consist of organic material, and so they
   proposed that the particles may be microbes of extraterrestrial origin.

   Louis and Kumar's analysis found that the red particles were typically
   4 to 10 µm across, spherical or oval in shape, and similar in
   appearance to unicellular organisms. On average, 1 millilitre of rain
   water was found to contain 9 million red particles, and the weight of
   particles in each liter of rainwater was about 100 milligrams.
   Extrapolating these figures to the total amount of red rain estimated
   to have fallen, Louis and Kumar calculated that a total weight of some
   50,000 kilograms of red particles had fallen over Kerala.

   Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis showed that the particles
   were composed of mostly carbon and oxygen, with trace amounts of
   silicon and iron (see table).

   CAPTION: Elemental composition of red cells by EDAX analysis

          Element Weight % Atomic % Standards
          C       49.53    57.83    CaCO[3]
          O       45.42    39.82    Quartz
          Na      0.69     0.42     Albite
          Al      0.41     0.21     Al[2]O[3]
          Si      2.85     1.42     Quartz
          Cl      0.12     0.05     KCl
          Fe      0.97     0.24     Fe

   A CHN analyzer showed 43.03% carbon, 4.43% hydrogen, and 1.84%
   nitrogen.

   Louis and Kumar performed tests with ethidium bromide to see if any DNA
   or RNA was present in the red particles, but found none. Their results
   are published in the journal Astrophysics and Space Science.

   Further tests on the particles were carried out at Sheffield University
   by Milton Wainwright, who has studied stratospheric spores. In March
   2006 he said the particles were similar in appearance to spores of a
   rust fungus , later saying that he had confirmed their similarity to
   spores or algae, and found no evidence to suggest that the rain
   contained dust, sand, fat globules or blood. He also said, “There
   appears to be an increasing tendency among scientists to come up with
   wild explanations when asked by the press to comment on unusual, novel
   phenomena. A good example is provided by comments about the recent
   Indian red rain phenomenon.” A correction was printed in at least one
   publication, see The Observer 12 Mar 2006 regarding Dr. Wainwright's
   comment that the red rain lacked DNA. Dr. Wainwright asked in the
   correction to make clear that he currently had no view on whether the
   samples contained DNA and that it was physicist Godfrey Louis who is of
   that view.

   A sample of the rain was also sent to Cardiff University for analysis
   by noted panspermia proponent Chandra Wickramasinghe. Wickramasinghe
   has reported that “work in progress has yeilded [sic] positive for
   DNA”.

Possible cometary origin

   A few hours before the first occurrence of the red rain, a sonic boom
   was reported by residents of Changanasserry in Kottayam district,
   accompanied by a flash of light. Louis and Kumar suggest that this was
   caused by the disintegration of a small comet entering the Earth's
   atmosphere, and that this comet contained large quantities of the red
   particles. Observations show that 85% of the red rain fell within 10
   days of 25 July, and Louis and Kumar suggest that this is consistent
   with the settling of red particles released into the upper atmosphere
   by a cometary break-up. Initial speculation by scientists in
   Thiruvananthapuram suggested that the red particles could be dust from
   a comet, but subsequent research found that they were Trentepohlia
   algae spores.

   Louis and Kumar further suggest that the particles are cells and thus
   represent evidence of extraterrestrial life. If the particles are
   biological in nature and did originate in a comet, it would be the
   first evidence in favour of the theory of panspermia, in which life on
   Earth is proposed to have been carried here from elsewhere in the
   universe. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have been among the
   proponents of the theory, but it has been dismissed by most mainstream
   scientists.

   Photomicrograph of particles from red rain sample

   Another image of particles

   Rain water sample (left) and after the particles settled (right). Dried
   sediment (centre).
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