ASTEROIDAL METEORITES RECORD A PERIOD OF TIME WE NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO FROM MOLECULAR CLOUD COMPONENTS TO THE FORMATION AND EARLY EVOLUTION OF PLANETESIMALS THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF PLANETS. THIS PROPOSAL'S RESEARCH WILL ENTAIL: 1) ESTABLISHING THE COSMOCHEMISTRY AND SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE (SEM) LABS AT UC SANTA CRUZ 2) PLACING CONSTRAINTS ON EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES AND BULK COMPOSITION THROUGH LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS 3) UNDERSTANDING THE TIMING AND CONDITIONS OF FLUID ACTIVITY IN EARLY PLANETESIMALS AND 4) CONSTRAINING THE INITIAL ABUNDANCE OF 60FE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM. THE EARLY CAREER AWARD WOULD BE USED TO SUPPORT THE RESEARCH OF THE PI THE SALARIES OF A POSTDOC TWO GRADUATE STUDENTS AND AT LEAST ONE UNDERGRAD IN THE COSMOCHEMISTRY LAB AT UC SANTA CRUZ. THE ECA WOULD ALSO GO TOWARD TRAVEL TO THE CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS AND LABORATORY SUPPLIES. THE RESEARCH ACTIVITIES DESCRIBED HERE ALL SUPPORT NASA PLANETARY SCIENCES DIVISIONS GOAL OF ASCERTAINING THE CONTENT ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND THE POTENTIAL FOR LIFE ELSEWHERE.