BLOOD RAIN in Kerala
why and how
Blood rain, also known as red rain, is a phenomena in which blood appears to fall from the sky as rain. Cases have been documented since Homer's Iliad ( Greek Ancient poem ), written around the 28th century BC, and are common.Long before the arrival of the 17th century, it was widely assumed that rain was truly blood. The occurrence of blood rain was regarded a negative portent in cult practise, according to literature. It was used to foretell events, although while some of these instances may be fictional, others are historical. The blood rain phenomena is now thought to be caused by aerial spores of the green microalgae Trentepohlia annulata, according to scientific consensus .
References in Literature .
- The earliest literature instances was found in the homers Iliads in which Zeus is responsible for the blood rain twice
- the same kind of things can be seen in the work of the famous poet Hesiod's , in around 700 BC .
- Famous Greek biographer Plutarch also gives accounts of Blood Rain in the Reign of Romulus
there was a bloody rain in Britain. And milk and butter were turned to blood. And Lothere, king of Kent, died
Reason Behind Kerala blood Rain
The aerial spores of the green microalgae Trentepohlia were shown to be the cause of blood rain in Kerala, according to a 2015 study. The researchers employed molecular phylogenetics to compare the evolution of T. annulata DNA sequences extracted from blood rain samples to T. annulata DNA sequences from Austria. The results indicate that the isolate from Kerala is a recently introduced Austrian species. The study confirmed that the alga was introduced via clouds over the ocean, a phenomena of intercontinental species dispersal that has previously been observed in bacteria and fungus but not in an alga. Intercontinental flights are comparable to clouds over ocean distribution; spores of this alga are delivered to India via clouds that drift across the Arabian Sea.
Spores could have been taken to the clouds first and dispersed there. It's unclear how these lower stratospheric clouds with algal spores ended up in Kerala, but it could be linked to the monsoon, as Kerala is the first state where the southwest monsoon meets Sri Lanka. Trade winds (SE and NE) converge in Kerala and Sri Lanka in an area known as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which could be another answer to this riddle. The next stage, according to the authors , would be to analyse transcontinental clouds using High-Efficiency Particulate Air Filters and a comparable DNA sequence-based technique dubbed "metagenomics," which would disclose the whole microbial diversity of these clouds.
Frequency of Happening
Because you'd need red dust/particles in extremely high quantities in the rain, proper blood rain, when the rain truly appears red, is relatively rare.
Cases that have been documented are few and far between. In 2001, monsoon rains in Kerala, India's southernmost state, were reddish-brown in colour and dark enough to stain clothing. During the same monsoon season, other colours of rain were reported, including green and yellow rain.
There are other, much older references to blood rain, dating all the way back to Homer's Iliad, an epic poem about the assault of Troy that is considered to have been written about the 8th century BC. It was interpreted as a negative omen, which was perhaps unsurprising.
Kerala's coloured rain first fell on July 25, 2001, in the districts of Kottayam and Idukki in the state's southern region. Other colours of rain were reportedly spotted as well, according to some sources. Over the next ten days, people reported numerous more incidents of the red rain, which subsequently decreased in frequency until late September.
The first colourful rain was preceded by a huge thunderclap and flash of light, followed by groves of trees shedding shrivelled grey "burnt" leaves, according to locals. Around the same period, reports of shrivelled leaves and the disappearance and sudden formation of wells in the area surfaced.
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