Scientists analyzing a meteorite have discovered the oldest known material on Earth. They found grains of dust in space rock – which fell to Earth in the 1960s – that are up to 7.5 billion years old.
The BBC said the oldest grains of dust formed in stars that roared long before the birth of our solar system. A team of researchers described the result in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When the stars die, the particles that form there are projected into space. These “pre-solar grains” are then incorporated into new stars, planets, moons and meteorites.