MIT scientists discover earth's ancient ancestor deep underground
- By Web Desk -
- Oct 19, 2025
CAMBRIDGE: MIT scientists and international partners have found rare fragments of “proto Earth”, the planet’s ancient precursor that existed 4.5 billion years ago.
These remnants offer a rare look into the material that existed before the massive impact that formed our modern planet. The study was published Tuesday in Nature Geosciences, as reported by ScienceDaily.
“This may be the first direct evidence that we’ve preserved materials from proto-Earth,” said Nicole Nie, the Paul M. Cook career development assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at MIT.
“We see a piece of the very ancient Earth, even before the giant impact. This is remarkable because we would expect this early signature to be gradually erased during Earth’s evolution,” she explained.
MIT scientists discovered an unusual chemical signature in deep rock samples from Greenland, Canada, and Hawaii, indicating a deficiency in the potassium-40 isotope compared to most modern Earth materials.
This anomaly suggests that these rocks may contain tiny remnants of proto-Earth, surviving billions of years of planetary upheaval, the findings indicate.
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Scientists have attempted to understand Earth’s original chemical makeup by analyzing various meteorite groups.
However, our study reveals that the current meteorite collection is incomplete, and much more remains to be discovered about our planet’s origins,” Nie added.