Godfrey Louis

{{Short description|Indian physicist}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2018}}

{{Use Indian English|date=June 2018}}

Godfrey Louis is a solid-state physicist from India. His hypotheses about the "red rain" phenomenon in Kerala have attracted controversy. In April 2008, he published a paper in which he hypothesised that samples of particles from the "blood-coloured" rain that fell in his state of Kerala, India in the summer of 2001 were the result of a comet disintegrating in the upper atmosphere which comprised mainly microbes from outer space.{{cite journal |last1=Louis |first1=Godfrey |last2=Kumar |first2=A. Santhosh |title=The Red Rain Phenomenon of Kerala and its Possible Extraterrestrial Origin |journal=Astrophysics and Space Science |volume=302 |issue=1–4 |pages=175–87 |year=2006 |doi=10.1007/s10509-005-9025-4 |arxiv=astro-ph/0601022v1|bibcode = 2006Ap&SS.302..175L }} The paper drew much media interest. Other scientists disagreed early on with Louis' hypothesis regarding the red rain's origin.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/mar/05/spaceexploration.theobserver|title=Red rain could prove that aliens have landed|accessdate=2009-09-06 | location=London | work=The Guardian | first1=Robin | last1=McKie | first2=Amelia | last2=Gentleman | date=13 March 2006}} An earlier (2001) study by the Centre for Earth Science Studies, Kerala, India, reported that the red rain was the result of spores from local algae.{{cite journal|last=Sampath |first=S. |author2=Abraham, T. K. |author3=Sasi Kumar, V. |author4=Mohanan, C.N. |title=Colored Rain: A Report on the Phenomenon |journal=Cess-Pr-114-2001 |publisher=Center for Earth Science Studies and Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute |year=2001 |url=http://www.geocities.com/iamgoddard/Sampath2001.pdf |accessdate=30 August 2009 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060613135746/http://www.geocities.com/iamgoddard/Sampath2001.pdf |archivedate=13 June 2006 |url-status=unfit }}

Since October 2006 Louis has been at Department of Physics, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) in Kochi, Kerala.

In August 2010 Louis and his collaborators presented a paper at the SPIE astrobiology conference held in San Diego, USA, claiming that the red rain cells develop internal daughter cells and multiply when exposed to extreme temperature of 121 °C in an autoclave for two hours, and that the fluorescent behavior of the red cells is similar to the extended red emission observed in the Red Rectangle nebula.{{cite journal |last1=Gangappa |first1=Rajkumar |last2=Wickramasinghe |first2=Chandra |last3=Wainwright |first3=Milton |last4=Kumar |first4=A. Santhosh |last5=Louis |first5=Godfrey |title=Growth and replication of red rain cells at 121°C and their red fluorescence |journal=Proceedings of SPIE |volume=7819 |pages=78190N |year=2010 |doi=10.1117/12.876393 |arxiv = 1008.4960 |bibcode=2010SPIE.7819E..0NG }}