This is a pallasite meteorite a rare slice of an ancient asteroid believed to have formed between its metallic core and rocky mantle over 4.5 billion years ago.
Those glowing crystal sections are olivine, meaning you’re looking at the shattered inner remains of a lost world from the dawn of our solar system.
That is something that i never got. Isn't all material that old? I mean it didn't spontaneously jump into existence at a later time.
I mean, technically yes but typically when they say something is this old they mean in the "last formed" state. Because while it's probably true that everything has always existed from the beginning of time, it hasn't stayed in the same state or form for very long.
It's like saying that cake has always existed because it's made of flour which is made from carbon which was created at the big bang.
But in truth, cake never existed before some one made the recipe for it and started arranging ingredients in a particular way to create cake.
Only hydrogen and helium formed shortly after the big bang. The heavier elements like carbon were fused inside stars later, and the heaviest during supernovae. The carbon in that meteor is the same age as the carbon on Earth, since it was part of the same dust cloud that formed our solar system.
And the heaviest from neutron star collisions.
I mean, technically yes but typically when they say something is formed at the Big Bang they mean in the hydrogen/helium state. Because while it's probably true that everything has always existed from the beginning of time, it hasn't stayed in the same state or form for very long.
yeah, "material" not as in individual atoms, but this here macroscopic structure made of said atoms.
Rocks on Earth aren’t that old because of plate tectonics.
The comment reply to one of your comment replies explains it. Yes, to some degree, it's really the "last formed" date, but everything besides helium and hydrogen atoms had to be formed over time after the big bang by fusing inside stars. Even carbon.
https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.zip/comment/26154715
No, plate tectonics. And most non-basaltic stones happen as chemical/physical reactions in the mantle or crust.