In this and subsequent books, Sitchin presented his literal translations of ancient Sumerian texts which told an incredible story about the origins of humankind on planet Earth - a story far different and much more fantastic than what we all learned in school.

The ancient cuneiform texts -- some of the earliest known writing, dating back some 6,000 years -- told the story of a race of beings called the Anunnaki.

Although eight of the planetary bodies discovered before 1950 remain "planets" under the modern definition, some celestial bodies, such as Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta (each an object in the solar asteroid belt), and Pluto (the first trans-Neptunian object discovered), that were once considered planets by the scientific community, are no longer viewed as such.

Several planets in the Solar System can be seen with the naked eye.

That orbiting material consisted of hot chunks of rock and frozen liquids called "planetisimals".

From these were gradually formed several (nine that we know of) planets including Earth.

OF THE 200,000 shards of rock that Mark Harrison has retrieved from Australia since the mid-1980s, only one contained what he was looking for.

Two flecks of graphite, each barely the size of a red blood cell.