Phosphates, a key element of the building blocks for life, came to Earth from outer space, according to a new study. Whether the necessary ingredients for life come baked into a planet when it’s born or they’re added later by meteorites and comets is a source of much debate. “On Earth, phosphine is lethal to living beings,” said Andrew Turner, lead author of the study in Nature Communications, in a statement. When they also exposed the grains to ionising radiation like the cosmic rays of the Universe, multiple phosphorous oxoacids were formed. The phosphates would then have made their way to Earth, and potentially to other planets or moons, in meteor showers.

Source: Forbes September 30, 2018 13:30 UTC