Stuff smacking into other stuff is really how science accomplishes a lot of things. In a new paper in the MNRAS with lead author Victor Rivilla, astronomers reveal phosphorous was delivered to Earth through impacting comets. This isn’t to say this is the only way we get phosphorous on Earth, but it is a particularly dramatic way that would have helped get many of the ingredients of life smacked into the same place. New observations from the ALMA found that phosphorus monoxide forms in the dust and gas clouds of star forming regions in the walls around forming giant stars. This material is subjected to shocks and radiation from the infant giant stars, leading to the production of this phosphorus rich molecule, and this material goes on to fall into the outskirts of forming smaller star systems, where it gets incorporated into comet materials. The Rosetta mission found phosphorus in the comet 67P-Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Since we know our world was hit with a myriad of small bodies, including comets and asteroids, in the past, it’s believed this is one of the ways Earth got the phosphorus that is necessary for life – one impact at a time.

Looking at the history of our universe, we see that everything evolves through interactions. From collisions to shocks to even the stretching violence of tidal forces, it is the interplay of objects through gravity that builds things up and breaks them down.

You can read more about this at:

Astronomers Reveal Interstellar Thread of One of Life’s Building Blocks (ESO)