非凡的紅雨、彗星和外星人的故事

Real Alien sighting? or Act of God
真正的外星人目擊？或上帝的行動
西元2007年06月14日

非凡的紅雨、彗星和外星人的故事
The Extraordinary Tale of Red Rain, Comets and Extraterrestrials
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
For years, claims have circulated that red rain which fell in India in 2001, contained cells unlike any found on Earth. Now new evidence that these cells can reproduce is about to set the debate alive.
多年來已經有流傳的聲稱， 在2001年落於印度的紅雨，載有不像任何在地球上發現的細胞。現在新證據表明，這些細胞能重新生產，正要準備辯論重活。
Panspermia is the idea that life exists throughout the universe in comets, asteroids and interstellar dust clouds and that life of Earth was seeded from one or more of these sources. Panspermia holds that we are all extraterrestrials.
胚種論是生命存在於整個宇宙中的彗星、小行星和星際塵埃雲的想法，和地球的生命是從一個或多個這些來源的播種。 胚種論認為，我們都是外星人。
While this is certainly not a mainstream idea in science, a growing body of evidence suggests that it should be carefully studied rather than casually disregarded.
雖然這肯定地不是一種主流的科學思想，但越來越多的證據提出，它應要進行小心研究，而不是隨隨便便置之不理。

For example, various bugs have been shown to survive for months or even years in the harsh conditions of space. And one of the more interesting but lesser known facts about the Mars meteorite that some scientists believe holds evidence of life on Mars, is that its interior never rose above 50 degrees centigrade, despite being blasted from the Martian surface by an meteor impact and surviving a fiery a descent through Earth's thick atmosphere.
例如，多種昆蟲已被證明能夠在艱苦的空間條件下存活數月甚至數年。而其中一些較有趣但鮮為人知關於火星隕石的事實，即一些科學家相信有生命的證據在火星上，即如它的內部永不上升高於 50度攝氏，儘管從火星表面被一個流星撞擊炸毀，並能通過地球的濃厚大氣層在火一般的襲擊倖存。
If there is life up there, this evidence suggests that it could survive the trip to Earth.
如果有生命在上面那裡，這證據提出它能夠存活於往地球之旅。
All that seems well established. Now for the really controversial stuff.
所有那一切似乎早已確立，現在輪到真正有爭議性的東西。
In 2001, numerous people observed red rain falling over Kerala in the southern tip of India during a two month period. One of them was Godfrey Louis, a physicist at nearby Cochin University of Science and Technology. Intrigued by this phenomena, Louis collected numerous samples of red rain, determined to find out what was causing the contamination, perhsand or dust from some distant desert.
在2001年，許多人在兩個月內於印度南端的喀拉拉邦上空，觀看到紅色的雨點落下。其中一人是戈弗雷路易斯，一位在附近科欽科技與科學大學的物理學家，被這個現象誘發好奇，路易斯收集眾多紅色雨水的樣本，決心要找出什麼造成那污染，來自某遙遠沙漠的沙子抑或灰塵。
Under a microscope, however, he found no evidence of sand or dust. Instead, the rain water was filled with red cells that look remarkably like conventional bugs on Earth. What was strange was that Louis found no evidence of DNA in these cells which would rule out most kinds of known biological cells (red blood cells are one possibility but ought to be destroyed quickly by rain water).
然而在顯微鏡下，他發現沒有任何沙子或灰塵的證據。取而代之，雨水是充滿紅色細胞那看起來非常像地球上傳統的昆蟲。奇怪的東西是，路易斯發現沒有DNA的證據在這些細胞內，排除大部份種類已知的生物細胞（紅血細胞是一種可能性，但要很快地被雨水破壞）。
Louis published his results in the peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space in 2006, along with the tentative suggestion that the cells could be extraterrestrial, perhaps from a comet that had disintegrated in the upper atmosphere and then seeded clouds as the cells floated down to Earth. In fact, Louis says there were reports in the region of a sonic boom-type noise at the time, which could have been caused by the disintegration of an object in the upper atmosphere.
路易斯發表他的結果在同行評審的2006年期刊天體物理學和空間，隨著初步建議細胞可能是外星人，也許來自在上大氣層瓦解的彗星，及然後種雲當細胞飄落到地球。路易斯說，事實上有報告該區當時有一音爆類型的噪音，那可能由上大氣層的一件物體解體造成。
Since then, Louis has continued to study the cells with an international team including Chandra Wickramasinghe from the University of Cardiff in the UK and one of the leading proponents of the panspermia theory, which he developed in the latter half of the 20th century with the remarkable physicist Fred Hoyle.
從那時以後，路易斯繼續它的細胞研究與一國際研究小組，包括來自英國卡迪夫大學和其中一位胚種論的領先支持者錢德拉維克拉馬辛，那是他與傑出物理學家弗雷德霍伊爾在20世紀下半部開發的。
Today Louis, Wickramasinghe and others publish some extraordinary claims about these red cells. They say that the cells clearly reproduce at a temperature of 121 degrees C. "Under these conditions daughter cells appear within the original mother cells and the number of cells in the samples increases with length of exposure to 121 degrees C," they say. By contrast, the cells are inert at room temperature.
今天路易斯、維克拉馬辛和其他人公佈一些關於這些紅色細胞的外星人宣稱；他們說細胞清楚地在一溫度攝氏 121度再繁殖，“在這些條件下，女兒細胞出現在原始母細胞，和樣本中的細胞數目增加暴露長度至攝氏 121度，”他們說。與此相反，細胞在室溫下是惰性的。
That makes them highly unusual, to say the least. The spores of some extremophiles can survive these kinds of temperatures and then reproduce at lower temperatures but nothing behaves like this at these temperatures, as far as we know.
這使它們高度不尋常，至少可以這樣說。一些極端孢子能存活在這類的溫度，及然後在較低溫度下繁殖，但在這些溫度下卻沒有像這樣的行為，據我們所知。
This is an extraordinary claim that will need to be independently verified before it will be more broadly accepted.
這是一個非凡的宣稱，將需要進行獨立審查證實，在它將在更大的範圍被接受之前。

And of course, this behaviour does not suggest an extraterrestrial origin for these cells, by any means.

However, Wickramasinghe and co can't resist hinting at such an exotic explanation. They've examined the way these fluoresce when bombarded with light and say it is remarkably similar to various unexplained emission spectra seen in various parts of the galaxy. One such place is the Red Rectangle, a cloud of dust and gas around a young star in the Monocerous constellation.

It would be fair to say that more evidence will be required before Kerala's red rain can be satisfactorily explained. In the meantime, it looks a fascinating mystery.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1008.4960: Growth And Replication Of Red Rain Cells At 121oC And Their Red Fluorescence

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25699/

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