Scientists show evidence that nitrogen acquired during Earth’s formation came from both the inner and outer regions of the protoplanetary disk. The study has implications for signs of potential habitability of exoplanets.

The isotopic signatures of nitrogen in iron meteorites reveal that Earth likely gathered its nitrogen not only from the region beyond Jupiter’s orbit but also from the dust in the inner protoplanetary disk.

Nitrogen is a volatile element that, like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, makes life on Earth possible. Knowing its source offers clues to not only how rocky planets formed in the inner part of our solar system but also the dynamics of far-flung protoplanetary disks.

The study by Rice graduate student and lead author Damanveer Grewal, Rice faculty member Rajdeep Dasgupta and geochemist Bernard Marty at the University of Lorraine, France, appears in Nature Astronomy.

Their work helps settle a prolonged debate over the origin of life-essential volatile elements in Earth and other rocky bodies in the solar system.

«Researchers have always thought that the inner part of the solar system, within Jupiter’s orbit, was too hot for nitrogen and other volatile elements to condense as solids, meaning that volatile elements in the inner disk were in the gas phase,» Grewal said.

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