Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
For rock material, we generally consider it's age as when it solidifies. Most meteorites are this age because they came from a supernova explosion of our sun at the end of its prior generation. This ejected most all elemental material lager than Hydrogen in our solar system. These elements were fused in that prior sun and ejected during the explosion. What didn't coalesce into a larger body (e.g. a planet) froze into space dust and small asteroids, some of which falls to earth.
So, the amalgam that makes up the rock is 4.5Ga (giga anum), the minerals within are about the same. However, the elements that made up the stone were made long before in inside the prior sun. Now how long the subatomic particles have been around is a question for someone else.
I know how it all works, but it's just somewhat weird. Some of the posts in this thread are about houses, but they are made up of other things, sometimes older, like bricks. They don't consider those though. If the OP here used his meteorite as a piece of his house, would he no longer consider it the oldest thing he owns? It's a ship of Theseus. Why does it change when it's part of something else? (Rhetorical question.)