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Is mysterious 'red rain' first evidence of life in space?
Sheffield researcher investigates whether cell-like particles that fell on India came from comet
Chris Benfield
Milton Wainwright is still not sure what the red stuff is in his fridge in Sheffield University. But he is open to the possibility it is what the Star Trek crew used to call "Life - only not as we know it".
For the past two weeks, Dr Wainwright has been examining some of the billions of mysterious particles which fell in a series of "red rains" over the south-west Indian state of Kerala between July and September 2001.
It has been proposed the particles that have the rain its colour are life forms from outer space – and if that is true, it raises the possibility that life arrived on this planet in the same way and life on any other planet is likely to be related to us.
The theory is supported in a new report by Indian physicist Godfrey Louis, who has been working on the red dirt and its possible origins for five years.
Now Dr Wainwright is carrying out tests, in the microbiology department at Sheffield, which could rule out the last of the Earthly explanations.
Meanwhile, he is already convinced he is looking at something very interesting indeed.
The red rains of Kerala were initially thought to be caused by drifting sand. But then it turned out the particles were nothing like sand. They were the size and shape of biological cells.
And their chemical make-up was characteristic of biological cells – mainly carbon and oxygen, with traces of iron, sodium and other elements.
More theories followed. It was proposed, for example, the cells could be blood, from flocks of migrating bats, blown up by an explosion in the upper atmosphere. But they are not.
Amazingly, according to Dr Louis, they seem to be able to split and replicate, despite apparently containing no DNA – the chemical reproductive code which is common to all life on Earth.
For this and other reasons, Dr Louis and his collaborator, Santhosh Kumar, one of his research students at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, have rejected all the explanations so far offered for an Earthly origin.
They believe the dust must have been contained in a comet or meteor which hit the atmosphere and exploded. There were reports of a big bang in the region at about the right time.
Now Dr Louis's argument – which can be studied via his website, at http://education.vsnl.com/godfrey/ – has been accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Science, after approval by an editorial board of heavyweight scientists.
New Scientist has already circulated the paper to a number of experts and got a mixture of scepticism and interest in response.
Among those inclined to take Dr Louis seriously was Cardiff University professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, one of the world's leading experts in the theory of "panspermia" – the scattering of the seeds of life by inter-planetary objects. He and the late Sir Fred Hoyle more or less invented the theory.
After completing his own investigations, Dr Louis sent some of his samples to Cardiff, just a few weeks ago. Prof Wickramasinghe then asked Dr Wainwright, with whom he has worked on other projects, to do the first tests on them.
Dr Wainwright told New Scientist there was every reason to take Dr Louis's report seriously. "Everything in the paper is done correctly.
"There is nothing wacky about it, although clearly it needs verifying."
Having carried out a first batch of tests on the red rain particles, he told the Yorkshire Post: "They are clearly cells. No argument about it. They look like the spores of some kind of rust fungus."
His first job is to try to find DNA, using a different set of tests from those Dr Louis tried.
If successful, it might be possible to identify it. If the DNA is unidentifiable, all possibilities remain open.
But if there really is no DNA, the mystery deepens and the extra-terrestrial explanation becomes even more likely – especially if it is possible to repeat the reproduction experiments, left out of Dr Louis's paper for Astrophysics & Space Science because they seemed too amazing to be true.
Dr Wainwright expects to have results within a few weeks, although he will make no public announcement until he is sure his experiments and his reasoning are beyond reasonable challenge.
"When Hoyle and Wickramasinghe started the panspermia theory in the 1980s, it was pooh-poohed," he said.
"But now it has become fashionable. With what we now know about microbes, it is quite easy to see how they could be transported onto Earth, and blown off Earth by collisions, so you get a two-way traffic throughout the cosmos."
chris.benfield@ypn.co.uk
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