A CHEMICAL vital for life on Earth may have arrived ready-made from space. Unexpectedly, a chondritic meteorite has been found to contain large amounts of ammonia, a nitrogen-rich chemical vital for forming the basic building blocks of life.
Explaining how enough ammonia for life appeared on the early Earth has been a puzzle, because sunlight rapidly destroys ammonia gas in the atmosphere.
Now, of Arizona State University in Tempe and her colleagues report finding abundant ammonia after boiling powder from a meteorite in water and exposing it to high pressures, mimicking conditions on the early Earth. Pizzarello suggests direct delivery of the fertiliser to Earth is an 鈥渁ttractive explanation鈥� for how it became abundant (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ).
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