A rare meteorite found in the Sahara may be a surviving shard of a lost Moon-sized world — one that formed beside the young Sun, followed a path unlike Earth or Mars, and was smashed apart while the planets were still being built.

A rare meteorite found in the Sahara may be a surviving shard of a lost Moon-sized world — one that formed beside the young Sun, followed a path unlike Earth or Mars, and was smashed apart while the planets were still being built.

A rock about the size of a fist, found lying in the Sahara, may be a surviving shard of a lost world nearly as large as the Moon. According to a new study, it formed beside the young Sun out of ingredients different from those that built Earth and Mars, and it was destroyed while the planets were still coming together. It is worth separating what is measured from what is inferred. The rock is real and genuinely ancient, and those are solid facts…