Red rain alien cells update

Read about it here

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6146292.stm]
n July 2001, a mysterious red rain started falling over a large area of southern India.

Locals believed that it foretold the end of the world, though the official explanation
was that it was desert dust that had blown over from Arabia.

But one scientist in the area, Dr Godfrey Louis, was convinced there was something
much more unusual going on.

Not only did Dr Louis discover that there were tiny biological cells present, but because
they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth, he
reasoned they must be alien lifeforms.

"This staggering claim is that this is possibly extraterrestrial. That is a big claim I know,
but all the experiments are supporting this claim," said Dr Louis.

His remarkable work has set in motion a chain of events with scientists around the world
debating the origin of these mysterious cells.

The main reason why Dr Louis`s ideas have not been immediately laughed out of court is
because they tie in with a theory promoted by two UK scientists ever since the 1960s.

Space qualified

The late Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe have been the champions
of "Panspermia", the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.

They speculate that life was first brought here on the back of a comet. Over the last
decade, Panspermia is being taken ever more seriously.

The US space agency (Nasa) is now increasingly interested in searching for extra-
terrestrial life.
Bacteria seem to me to be born space travellers
Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe

A new robotic submarine is being developed to explore the oceans of one of Jupiter`s
moons. This submarine is on test at the moment in a lake in Texas.

Finding life elsewhere in the Solar System would be a vital bolster to the Panspermia
theory.

Another section of Nasa is devoted to the study of bacteria found on Earth that can
survive extreme conditions.

Finding these types of bacteria makes it more likely that micro-organism could survive
the hardships of travelling through space on the back of a meteoroid.

Professor Wickramasinghe explained: "Bacteria have got to endure the extreme cold of
space, the vacuum of space, ultraviolet radiation, cosmic rays, X-rays.

"That sounds like a tall order but bacteria do that. From what we know survival out in
space is more or less ensured. Bacteria seem to me to be born space travellers."

From another place

Last summer, Horizon had exclusive access to a trip taken by Professor Wickramasinghe
to India to investigate at first hand the red rain phenomenon.