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What Made the Moon? New Ideas Try to Rescue a Troubled Theory
Textbooks say that the moon was formed after a Mars-size mass smashed the young Earth. But new evidence has cast doubt on that story, leaving researchers to dream up new ways to get a giant rock into orbit.
Journey to the Birth of the Solar System
Join David Kaplan on a virtual-reality tour showing how the sun, the Earth and the other planets came to be.
On the Moon’s Far Side, Clues to a Cataclysm?
A mission to collect samples from the far side of the moon could answer questions about a barrage of asteroids nearly 4 billion years ago.
Explorers Find Passage to Earth’s Dark Age
Geochemical signals from deep inside Earth are beginning to shed light on the planet’s first 50 million years, a formative period long viewed as inaccessible to science.
A Quasicrystal’s Shocking Origin
By blasting a stack of minerals with a four-meter-long gun, scientists have found a new clue about the backstory of a very strange rock.
How Life and Luck Changed Earth’s Minerals
Did the minerals on our planet arise in a predictable fashion, or did they result from chance events? The answers could eventually help scientists identify planets likely to harbor life.
In a Grain, a Glimpse of the Cosmos
When scientists traced a museum rock back to its origins, they uncovered mysteries about the early solar system.