ESOcast 215 Light: Interstellar Thread of One of Life’s Building Blocks Revealed

Published: Jan. 15, 2020, 11 a.m.

Phosphorus, present in our DNA and cell membranes, is an essential element for life. But how it arrived on the early Earth is something of a mystery. Astronomers have now traced the journey of phosphorus from star-forming regions to comets using the combined powers of ALMA and the European Space Agency’s probe Rosetta.