The oldest meteorite revealed new facts about the solar system (5 photos)

A meteorite called Erg Chech 002, which is considered the most the oldest meteorite in history, revealed to scientists new facts about our solar system. This meteorite is about 4.6 billion years old. Team researchers studied it and shared their findings.





Meteorite Erg Chech 002 was discovered back in 2020, in the desert Sahara in Algeria. The meteorite is about 4.6 billion years old and considered to be the oldest known volcanic rock on earth. This andesitic achondrite - a type of stony meteorite, one of the most ancient known today. The stone formed during the first billion years of the existence of the solar system, so scientists began to actively study it in an attempt to obtain previously unknown data. Their the main goal is to restore the history of the formation of planets and early solar system.



In a new study, scientists from the Australian National University under the leadership of Evgeny Krestyaninov analyzed the amount of radioactive isotope aluminum-26 (26Al) in the composition meteorite, and compared it with others. It is believed that the 26Al isotope played important role and was the main source of heat in the early evolution of the solar systems. In addition, according to its quantity, experts usually determined age of meteorites. But as a result of research, scientists found that in early solar nebula aluminum-26 was unevenly distributed, because of which methods for determining the age of meteorites have been sharply put under doubt. Experts now believe that 26Al cannot be relied upon to determine exactly how old a space rock is or what role it could play in the formation of the planets.





This is contrary to previous studies in which assumed that 26AI was evenly distributed in anticipation planetary formation in the early solar nebula. The new data will increase the reliability and accuracy of determining the age of the planetary, asteroid material and meteorites. Now, according to the researchers, meteorite chronology should be determined "with caution" using generalized approach to dating.