NASA-backed study reveals how Earth got key ingredients for life

4 min readUpdated: Jun 6, 2026 01:24 PM IST

A NASA-backed study suggests Jupiter’s formation helped determine how Earth acquired phosphorus and nitrogen, two elements essential for life. (Image for representation: Magnific)

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.

In the earliest stages, this gas and dust clumped together into bodies called planetesimals. Through collisions and fragmentation, some of these objects eventually became the planets we know today, while others survived as asteroids, and – when they fall to Earth and are recovered – as meteorites.

Iron meteorites and chondrites represent two different generations of these ancient planetesimals. Iron meteorites are dense, metallic objects made primarily of iron-nickel alloy, sourced from the oldest generation of planetesimals. Chondrites, the stony meteorites most commonly found on Earth, came from a second generation that formed roughly 2 to 3 million years later.

Using laboratory experiments and geochemical modelling, the team mapped phosphorus-to-nitrogen ratios across the early solar system and found a striking reversal between the two generations. In the first generation, the outer solar system held a higher ratio, with an outward flow of material driving that trend.

Then came Jupiter

As Jupiter formed and grew in size, its immense gravitational pull restricted the movement of phosphorus and nitrogen from the inner to the outer solar system. When the second generation of planetesimals emerged, those in the inner solar system were left with a comparatively higher phosphorus-to-nitrogen ratio than those further out.

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Geochemical modelling further confirmed that Earth’s present-day phosphorus-nitrogen signature is best explained by material from the inner solar system – not, as previously thought, from outer solar system chondrites travelling inward late in Earth’s formation.

Ingredients to Life close to Home

“The study suggests that Earth acquired its inventory of the life-essential elements phosphorus and nitrogen primarily from the inner solar system, without requiring a significant contribution from outer solar system chondrites,” said Pathak.

For Dasgupta, the findings raise a broader question that extends well beyond our own solar system. “It remains an open question whether a life-essential element budget similar to Earth’s can be established without a Jupiter-like planet in the population,” he noted – suggesting that giant planets like Jupiter may be a quiet but critical ingredient in the recipe for habitability elsewhere in the universe.

(This article has been curated by Nityanjali Bulsu, who is an intern with The Indian Express.)