Pseudo-panspermia of Phosphorus Species on the Early Earth

In the Earth system, Phosphorus (P) does not form a single phase, but mostly combines into compounds forming multiple minerals. Phosphate (P+5) is the majority P species in the Earth’s crust.

Phosphate is the completely oxidized P species, while P similarly contains some other reduced species like hypophosphate (P4+), phosphite (P3+), hypophosphite (P1+) and phosphine (P3-). Due to these reduced P species being reactive with oxygen, it’s hard to find these reduced P compounds in the Earth’s lithosphere.

However, P in the solar system, especially in meteorites, contains more diverse compounds than in a typical Earth system. Moreover, different types of meteorites may have different amounts and types of P species, included in different types of minerals. One mechanism for needed reduced P species to get to the early earth would be meteoric delivery.

The idea of pseudo panspermia is that the chemicals needed for the origins of life are brought to planets by comets and meteors, specifically carbon-based molecules. Here we wish to consider the simple step of replacing carbon-based molecules with P species in considering pseudo panspermia.

It is important to consider the inventory of various P species in our solar system where they are found and if they could be delivered to the early Earth. This would provide a catalog to think about prebiotic chemistry in terms of pseudo panspermia and P. In this paper, we provide a review of P species in different types of meteorites. We further summarize how P may be available in terms of pseudo-panspermia and the origin of biomolecules.

Pseudo-panspermia of Phosphorus species on the Early Earth, chemrxiv.org

Astrobiology,