The reason behind the formation of moon could also be the reason behind life on earth - scientists say

A new study led by US scientists says that the cosmic collisions that created the moon could be the very reason behind the origin of life on earth.

This cosmic collision occurred around 4.4 billion years ago, when a rogue planet almost the size of Mars, smashed into the earth. The debris of rocks created by this collision, later assembled themselves to create the moon. This collision also transferred the essential elements on earth's surface that were necessary for life to emerge. This means that most of the nitrogen and carbon which make up our body, came from this intergalactic mobile planet.

Petrologists at Rice University, Texas conducted a series of experiments to reach this conclusion. In these experiments, they studied the geochemical reactions that occur under high temperatures and pressures deep inside a planet. The aim of these experiments was to understand whether earth acquired the key elements for life, from a meteorite or from some other source.

Lead author Damanveer Grewal found that a planet with sulphur rich core would have large ratio of nitrogen and carbon on its surface, and hence it could have delivered just the right proportion of these elements to earth after hitting it. This conclusion was drawn after running billions of different cosmic simulations on computer and comparing them to the current situations of our solar system.

According to Rajdeep Dasgupta, who worked on the project, "Scientists have long known that inner rocky planets in the solar system are volatile-depleted, after studying the primitive meteorites. However, the timing and mechanism of the delivery has been in debate. Ours is the first scenario that can explain the timing and delivery in a way that is consistent with all the geochemical evidence". The research is published in Science Advances.

On Monday, astronomers captured a meteorite striking the moon during the total lunar eclipse. It is still unclear whether the peak strike rate is over.