The controversy arose in early 2012, when reports began to surface that newly formed tea-party and other conservative groups that had applied for tax-exempt status were receiving letters from the IRS asking for disclosure of their donors and other information that typically isn't requested of groups making such applications.

WSJ: IRS Apologizes for Scrutiny of Conservative Groups

The surface cooled, a crust formed, and oceans condensed upon it.

NEWYORKER: The Martian Chroniclers

Detailed studies of the surface indicate that these were formed by a lake caused by the flow of underground water that periodically made its way to the bottom of the crater.

FORBES: NASA Finds Remains Of Ancient Martian Lake

Besides the larger number of emigrant rocks from its surface, Mars cooled faster than the earth after it formed, and so would have reached conditions favourable to life (a dense atmosphere, allowing for surface water) earlier.

ECONOMIST: Panspermia: Interplanetary migration | The

That makes the precise location of the surface where the image is to be formed much less important, because any particular plane at any given location will receive more or less the same pattern of light rays.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

Potholes are formed by water seeping through cracks in the asphalt surface of a road.

BBC: Jetpatchers at work

These were formed when an asteroid or comet smacked into the lunar or Martian surface and threw out debris that fell into Earth's gravitational grasp.

WSJ: Russia Meteor Was Largest in More Than a Century

Regolith is a fine powder formed by a constant rain of small meteorites that breaks up the rocks at the surface.

ECONOMIST: Spaceflight

According to a new computer model, liquid methane in contact with a partially hydrogen-terminated diamond surface at extremely high pressures and temperatures spontaneously forms longer hydrocarbons, and hence the material of crude oil could be formed deep in the earth.

FORBES: Deep Oil From Diamonds? Maybe, Says A New Report