Around 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system was a very different place. Instead of planets, all that was floating around the sun was clouds of gas and dust.
Gravity eventually drew these clouds together into clumps, which grew into pebbles, boulders, then planet-sized rocks. Some of these smaller clumps did not make it into planets, and they still exist now, as meteorites. Studying the composition of meteorites, therefore, can give us a glimpse into the way rocky planets formed.
Two new studies published in Nature have used this to add to our understanding of this process; saying the composition of Earth may have come about from the evaporation of molten rock.
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Abigail Beall 