'No meteoritic or alien connection with Red rain'
A common phenomena in Kerala:
Prof Chandana Jayaratne of the Colombo University's Department of
Physics said there have been several queries on the red rain (some times
called blood rain due to its colour) observed on November 15 in the
Sevenagala and Monaragala areas and a possible connection of an alien
attack as published in some news reports.
He said there is no such extra terrestrial connection to this rain
and there were no possible meteor showers too involved with it.
According to Prof Jayaratne, this so called "red rain" is a very
common phenomena in the southern Indian state of Kerala and such
coloured rain had been reported in Kerala as early as 1896 and on
several occasions since then.
The most recent occasion for Kerala state to experience red rain was
June 2012, he said.
"A study commissioned by the government of India concluded that these
rains in Kerala had been coloured by airborne spores from locally
prolific terrestrial algae. They concluded that the results were
consistent with a marine origin or a terrestrial plant," he said.
The colour was found to be due to the presence of a large amount of
spores of a lichen-forming alga belonging to the genus Trentepohlia.
That report also stated that there was no meteoric, volcanic or desert
dust origin present in the rainwater and that its color was not due to
any dissolved gases or pollutants," he said.
"It takes some time to study the nature of wind patterns in finding
the origin of the red rain experienced in Monaragala on Thursday. There
is even another related phenomena called "red tides" where estuarine,
marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column,
resulting in discoloration of the surface water. |
