The once-secret lives of plants are telling researchers volumes about the composition of Earth's atmosphere, providing clues to past and current climate change.

CNN: Plants spread secrets about climate change

"The text of the Clean Air Act makes plain that Congress intended it as a measure to 'clean' the air of pollutants, not to alter the overall composition of the Earth's atmosphere, " argues the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an auto industry lobbying group, in a brief.

FORBES: Supreme Court Takes On Global Warming?

But the early models indicated that much of this debris would have originated from the impactor, whose composition would most probably have differed substantially from that of Earth.

BBC: Moon formation: New spins put on old questions

Near is providing important information on the structure and composition of asteroids, which would be needed for any future attempt to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid .

BBC: At a glance: Asteroid touchdown

Each day, the scientific community collects millions of individual Earth observations, allowing us to examine, monitor, and model atmospheric composition, seismic activity, ecosystem health, weather patterns, and hundreds of other characteristics of our planet.

WHITEHOUSE: Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

So if astronomers have the composition of even some asteroids wrong, they might also have the wrong story about the birth of the earth.

ECONOMIST: Asteroids