Happy 4,568 Millionth Birthday !

The oldest material in the Solar System was found. These pea-sized minerals inside a meteorite were recently just found and push back the Solar System’s birthday by as much as two million years. This suggests that the explosion of a star is what injected key materials into the Solar System as it was being born. The minerals are estimated to be about 4,568.2 million years old. The parent meteorite was discovered in 2004 is Morocco and is believed to have originated from the asteroid belt that is between Mars and Jupiter. Tests inside the lumps of the mineral, which are called calcium-aluminum inclusions, date back before the asteroid belt existed. Scientists believe that the minerals may have formed after a nebula collapsed and formed the Sun. After this collapse of the nebula, matter started to condense, as the temperature started going down. Since the Solar System is now 2 million years older than it was thought to be, the abundance of iron-60 estimated from the inclusions, must also be dated back two million years prior of what it was originally thought to be. It all has to do with isotopes, which in this case was the iron-60, forming when massive stars go supernova and explode at the end of their lives. Also, since iron-60 degrades by half every two million years, the initial quantity of iron-60 in the Solar System is almost double the prior estimates. A nearby supernova is the only thing that could have put so much iron-60 into the Solar System.

Author Audrey Bouvier, a research associate at Arizona State mentions, " Massive stars may have exploded nearby but not close enough to destroy it– but instead brought in these key elements for planet formation and life." This article relates to science because it has to do with how our planet got created, how life came into existence and basically because of this us humans are here on Earth today.

This is an important article because it is necessary to educate us people on our Solar System. As Bouvier also mentions, "I think it is important that people understand that this matter now present in our Solar System has been brought in by other stars." People need to be highly informed about this topic because our lives revolves around the Solar System, and in a way depend on it.

Source:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100823-oldest-solar-system-two-million-years-older-science/