[Rockhounds] 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite could reveal how Earth formed different layers

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Scientists have analyzed one of the oldest space rocks ever discovered. The
data could reveal secrets about the solar system in its infancy during the
birth of the planets and also help scientists better determine the ages of
the oldest meteorites that fall to Earth.

The 4.6-billion-year-old Erg Chech 002 meteorite
<https://www.space.com/42636-meteorites.html>, which is encrusted with
green crystals, was discovered in the Erg Chech region of the Sahara Desert
in Algeria in 2020.

Meteorites like this are believed to have formed from material in a disk of
gas and dust around the infant sun
<https://www.space.com/58-the-sun-formation-facts-and-characteristics.html>.
Cold, dense patches of this "solar nebula" collapsed to birth the planets,
but leftover material formed comets <https://www.space.com/comets.html> and
asteroids
<https://www.space.com/51-asteroids-formation-discovery-and-exploration.html>
from
which meteors break away, often finding their way to the surface of Earth
<https://www.space.com/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html> in
the form of meteorites. This means that meteorites can paint a picture of
the elements that served as the building blocks of the planets.

Erg Chech 002 contained the radioactive isotope Aluminum-26 when it formed,
which is significant because this unstable form of Aluminum is believed to
have been important in a later stage of Earth's evolution, so-called
"planetary melting," the team, led by Australian National University
scientist Evgenii Krestianinov, wrote in a paper published in Nature
Communications.
<https://files.springernature.com/getResource/Full%20text%3A%2041467_2023_Article_40026.pdf?token=IULUvIufpS8AXE43riPpExKrcZMUcwpHIO0w4yhOno61RnG9Vz6%2Fr7GCrI5AcBi92o1n3tikPjKFkiYotkHNpNM75Zwrwg1JnULfD6ql3lZ5%2F4SHpRxnjX6EnZ3z02iRuCh%2FZ3DLB4IVSRfpmhKqIC%2FxW3KYl71yv48OkWa6zMfKA3DvoF7K8nXDrNL2MiXa6R1Se4bGQnT7HNP7lnlhp9R9ie6CqfHB3gsKJ%2BZ2%2F5OG3eNs2jsDKIt6ogD7VgOiaP3Tdhmek9ubVZwx%2FRy3Zy%2B8st1fNQ5yJC28eQvvoi%2BAvv5MZPeWAKf2CeBnI8EwTzJOb1SBzQO3KOV0mjYEuA%3D%3D>

https://www.space.com/meteorite-4-billion-years-early-solar-system