Life on Earth ‘may have come from ANOTHER PLANET’ in collision 4.4BN years ago

Lead author Damanveer Grewal said: “What we found is that all the evidence – isotopic signatures, the carbon-nitrogen ratio and the overall amounts of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur in the bulk silicate Earth – are consistent with a moon-forming impact involving a volatile-bearing, Mars-sized planet with a sulphur-rich core.”

The sulphur content of the donor planet’s core is important because of the puzzling array of experimental evidence about the carbon, nitrogen and sulphur that exist in all parts of the Earth other than the core.

Mr Grewal said: “The core doesn’t interact with the rest of Earth, but everything above it, the mantle, the crust, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere, are all connected.

“Material cycles between them.”