Long-playing Records 
Invaluable clues to the history of the earth 
and the moon come from the study of meteorites 
by John A. Wood 
Before the earth’s crust solidified, meteorites bombarding the planet may 
have sent up fountains of lava. In Chesley Bonestell’s painting, “Formation 
of the Earth’s Crust," a swollen moon looms on the horizon. 
Future Life Magazine; Chesley Bonestell 
Meteorites are not merely curiosi- 
ties that fill our museums. They are 
crumbs and scraps left over from the 
formation of the solar system, and they 
retain a record of the things that hap- 
pened at that time. 
Our sun was formed by the drawing 
together of wisps of gas and specks 
of dust from the space between the 
stars. As a byproduct of this process, 
vast numbers of lumps of earthy grains 
and icy material were left spinning 
in orbits around the infant sun. The 
orbits were more or less round and 
concentric, lay in nearly the same 
plane, and all the lumps revolved in 
the same direction, so there was an 
organized motion of the ensemble like 
that of a thin, dark disk turning slowly 
about the sun. The icy lumps were 
probably present only in the outer 
