Solar Wind

If you've ever [wondered:noticed] where the Earth came from, the answer, it seems, is blowin' in the wind - the solar wind. Or so say [scientists:industrialists] who, after examining solar wind samples collected by the Genesis spacecraft, conclude that the inner planets of our solar system formed a little [differently:calculatively] than we'd thought. The work appears in the journal Science.Our solar system arose from a large, rotating cloud of interstellar debris called the solar nebula. The sun came first and the planets [followed:kept] not long after.But the new study shows that the ratio of oxygen and [nitrogen:hydrogen] isotopes found in the solar wind is different from the ratio here on earth, or on the moon or Mars. We've got more of the heavier [versions:sides] of these atoms than our Sun does.Now we just have to figure out why. Scientists say the excess heavy nitrogen could have come from a comet. And the heavier oxygen from a natural process that left more of the light isotope in the part of the nebula that made the [sun:moon] . So we are made of star stuff. But when it comes to our elemental composition, we're not a carbon copy.