On the Trail of Life’s Phosphorus Mystery

Phosphorus is a crucial component of life; it is found in DNA, RNA, the energy carrier ATP, and elsewhere. Although phosphorus is abundant on Earth in the form of minerals, it is still unknown where the chemically reactive phosphorus compounds required for the first steps in the emergence of life even came from. This “phosphorus enigma” is one of the central, unanswered questions about the genesis of life.

In the ERC project ³¹PIRATE, Dr. André K. Eckhardt examines whether reactive phosphorus compounds could have formed in space and been involved in the initial chemical steps towards life after their arrival on early Earth. To do this, he replicates interstellar ice particles in a lab and exposes them to energetic radiation similar to the conditions found in space. Eckhardt then tracks which new phosphorus compounds form and whether they survive the transition from interstellar ice into liquid water.

Using a globally unique combination of EPR spectroscopy and phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (³¹P-NMR), he intends to directly observe these short-lived compounds for the first time and track them into aqueous solutions. The project thus forms a direct bridge between astrochemistry and prebiotic chemistry, and aims to demonstrate the role that phosphorus from space may have played in the emergence of the first biologically relevant molecules.