Scientists May Have Solved Origin of Earth's Building Blocks

From the oldest fragments of our solar system, scientists have begun to read a more complete story of Earth's birth — tracing the chemical signatures of ancient meteorites back to their source regions in the primordial nebula. The findings suggest that our planet was not assembled from a tidy, local supply of materials, but rather from a chaotic blending of matter born under vastly different conditions across the early solar system. In understanding where Earth came from, we inch closer to understanding why it became the world it is — and what that might mean for worlds we have yet to find.