Scientists backed by NASA have uncovered new details about how the early Earth may have acquired the essential elements needed to become a habitable world – and point to an unexpected player in the story: Jupiter.
According to a study published in Science Advances, a team led by Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University in Houston, along with lead author and graduate student Debjeet Pathak, examined the ratio of phosphorus to nitrogen across two distinct classes of meteorites – iron meteorites and chondrites, to reconstruct the chemical history of the young solar system.
Birth of the solar systemThe solar system, as we know it today, began as a swirling cloud of gas and dust around the proto-Sun more than 4.5 billion years ago.
Within this cloud, the raw materials for planets, moons, and life itself took shape.
Among the most critical of these materials are nitrogen and phosphorus – two elements without which life, as we know it, could not exist.
Scientists backed by NASA have uncovered new details about how the early Earth may have acquired the essential elements needed to become a habitable world – and point to an unexpected player in the story: Jupiter.
According to a study published in Science Advances, a team led by Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University in Houston, along with lead author and graduate student Debjeet Pathak, examined the ratio of phosphorus to nitrogen across two distinct classes of meteorites – iron meteorites and chondrites, to reconstruct the chemical history of the young solar system.
Birth of the solar system
The solar system, as we know it today, began as a swirling cloud of gas and dust around the proto-Sun more than 4.5 billion years ago. Within this cloud, the raw materials for planets, moons, and life itself took shape. Among the most critical of these materials are nitrogen and phosphorus – two elements without which life, as we know it, could not exist.
