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![\"EarthSnap\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/earthsnap-banner-news.webp.webp\")
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That idea made sense. Water and other volatile ingredients, the kind that can easily evaporate, seemed more likely to form in colder regions far from the Sun.<\/p>\n
If Earth has oceans, something must have carried that material inward \u2013 or so the thinking went.<\/p>\n
A surprising shift in the story<\/p>\n
A fresh analysis now challenges that long-standing idea. Instead of a mixed origin, the findings point to something much simpler. Earth may have formed almost entirely from local material, right where it is.<\/p>\n
The numbers are striking. Earlier estimates suggested that 6 to 40 percent of Earth\u2019s building blocks<\/a> came from beyond Jupiter. <\/p>\n The new work cuts that down to less than two percent \u2013 and possibly zero. That changes how scientists think about the early Solar System and how planets took shape.<\/p>\n The data behind the claim<\/p>\n This shift comes from work by planetary scientists Paolo Sossi and Dan Bower at ETH Zurich<\/a>. They took a close look at isotopes found in meteorites, including samples linked to Mars and the asteroid Vesta<\/a>.<\/p>\n Isotopes are versions of the same element with different masses, and they act like fingerprints that reveal where material formed.<\/p>\n \u201cOur calculations make it clear: the building material of the Earth originates from a single material reservoir,\u201d said Sossi. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were truly astonished to find that the Earth is composed entirely of material from the inner Solar System<\/a> distinct from any combination of existing meteorites,\u201d Bower added.<\/p>\n Their approach stands out. Instead of focusing on just one or two isotopic systems, they examined ten. Then they used statistical methods that are not commonly applied in geochemistry. <\/p>\n \u201cOur studies are actually data science experiments,\u201d said Sossi. \u201cWe carried out statistical calculations that are rarely used in geochemistry, even though they are a powerful tool.\u201d<\/p>\n Reading the fingerprints of space rocks<\/p>\n Meteorites carry chemical clues about their origins. For a long time, scientists relied mostly on oxygen isotopes to trace where these rocks came from. <\/p>\n That changed in the early 2010s, when researchers realized that elements like chromium and titanium also hold useful signals.<\/p>\n These clues divide meteorites into two main groups. Non-carbonaceous meteorites come from the inner Solar System. Carbonaceous ones, richer in water and carbon, formed farther out. The new analysis shows that Earth matches only the inner group.<\/p>\n That finding removes the need for large-scale mixing between distant regions. It suggests that Earth grew from nearby material, gradually pulling in smaller bodies as it formed.<\/p>\n Jupiter\u2019s quiet role<\/p>\n One key player helps explain this separation: Jupiter<\/a>. As the largest planet in the Solar System, it formed quickly and carved a gap in the disk of gas and dust around the young Sun. That disk is where planets are born.<\/p>\n Jupiter\u2019s gravity acted like a barrier. It limited how much material from the outer Solar System could drift inward. Scientists have long wondered how strong that barrier was. This new work suggests it was more effective than expected.<\/p>\n \u201cOur calculations are very robust and rely solely on the data itself, not on physical assumptions, as these are not yet fully understood,\u201d said Bower.<\/p>\n What this means for Earth\u2019s water<\/p>\n If Earth didn\u2019t rely on outer Solar System material, then its water likely came from closer to home. That raises new questions. How did water survive in a region that was once much hotter? And how common might this process be on other planets?<\/p>\n The findings also hint that Earth is not unique among its neighbors. Its composition closely matches that of Mars<\/a> and Vesta. <\/p>\n Venus and Mercury may follow the same pattern, although scientists don\u2019t yet have rock samples from those planets to confirm it.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on our analysis, we can theoretically predict the composition of these two planets,\u201d said Sossi.<\/p>\n A new chapter in a long debate<\/p>\n These results reshape a major piece of the story about how Earth formed<\/a>. They suggest a more orderly early Solar System, with less mixing and more separation than previously thought.<\/p>\n \u201cOur results shed new light on the formation history of our Earth and the other rocky planets,\u201d said Sossi.<\/p>\n The work does not close the debate. Questions remain, especially about how water and other volatile elements became part of Earth. <\/p>\n The team plans to keep digging into those details and to see if the same patterns apply to planets around other stars.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil then, however, Dan and I will have to engage in many heated debates about the material composition of Earth and its neighboring planets, because the scientific discourse over the building blocks of Earth is far from over, despite the new findings,\u201d said Sossi.<\/p>\n The full study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earth feels like a local story. It sits close to the Sun, surrounded by rocky neighbors, and is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-358820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}