2001 Indian ‘red rain’ showered earth with ‘alien life’, claim theorists
September 3rd, 2010 - 12:17 pm ICT by ANIMelbourne, Sept 3 (ANI): After nine years of research, panspermia theorists have said that the ‘red’ rains that occurred in India in July 2001 contained bugs that were unlike anything ever found on the Earth, suggesting that it may be an alien form of life.
Panspermia is the idea that all life on Earth was seeded from comets, asteroids or meteors that struck the planet and contained the building blocks necessary to kick-start the evolutionary process.
Godfrey Louis, a physicist, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, a panspermia theorist from the UK, said that the bugs that turned the rain red in India may have come from a comet that exploded above the Earth and seeded clouds.
Louis said that the cells - inert at room temperature - begin to reproduce at 121C and within two hours of being exposed to the heat, “daughter cells appear within the original mother cells and the number of cells in the samples increases with length of exposure”, reports News.com.au.
The team also found an unusual pattern in the way the cells changed colour under UV light, known as “fluorescence behaviour, suggesting, though not proving, an extraterrestrial origin.”
“As a biologist, let me assure you that a cell-sized and shaped organism that reproduces, lives off LB and doesn’t appear to have any nucleic acid template (DNA or RNA) is a revolutionary discovery in and of itself,” one commenter wrote at TechnologyReview.
As of now, the team’s findings are yet to be verified. (ANI)
- 'Red rain' in Kerala again? - Aug 30, 2011
- Indian scientist examines possibility of life on planets other than Earth - Dec 25, 2009
- Best time to see the Leonid Meteor Shower 2010 is now - Nov 17, 2010
- Watch out for Geminid meteor shower Wednesday - Dec 12, 2011
- Vast oceans of liquid water in comets may have fuelled life on Earth - Jul 31, 2009
- Poisonous chemical formaldehyde linked to origin of life on Earth - Apr 05, 2011
- Humans are aliens, says Brit scientist - Feb 03, 2010
- Mumbai scientist challenges theory that bacteria came from space - Aug 31, 2009
- Reason for zodiac glow in the eastern night sky identified - Apr 16, 2010
- Scientists conduct 'post-mortem of comet' to find origins of solar system - May 29, 2010
- China comes up with plan to save Earth from asteroid hit - Aug 19, 2011
- Delhi's overcast sky may obscure meteor shower - Aug 12, 2010
- Did far-off comets with watery oceans harbour life? - Jul 31, 2009
- Meteor shower to sparkle sky Thursday - Aug 11, 2010
- Leonid meteor shower to peak Thursday - Nov 16, 2010
Tags: alien life, biologist, chandra wickramasinghe, comets asteroids, daughter cells, exposure reports, extraterrestrial origin, godfrey louis, life on earth, meteors, mother cells, news com au, panspermia, red rain, revolutionary discovery, technologyreview, template dna, theorist, theorists, uv light