Meteorite Studies Reveal Surprises About Earth's Formation

Two studies published Wednesday (Jan. 25) in the journal Nature suggest that Earth's main building blocks were rocks similar to meteorites known as enstatite chondrites, and that the planet got most of its water gradually during the formation process, rather than in one big burst toward the end. "The results presented in these papers lead to the troubling conclusion that the meteorites in our collection are not particularly good examples of Earth's building blocks," Richard Carlson, a geochemist