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This May Be Earth's Oldest Rock – But it Was Collected on The Moon
Scientists looking at strange minerals on a moon rock realized it was likely made here on Earth—suddenly making it the oldest rock known.
Science & Tech
A rock taken by the Apollo 14 astronauts in 1971 from the surface of the moon was just determined to be merely a tourist—not a resident—of our nearest cosmic neighbor.
Analysis of the conditions that formed part of this 20-pound stone suggests that, rather than being a new kind of moon rock, it actually arrived from the Earth—tossed up into outer space by an asteroid impact over 4 billion years ago.
If the dating that placed its birth around 4.011 billion years ago is correct, it would actually be the oldest piece of intact Earth rock ever found, supplanting some erroneously dated mineral sand from Australia.
Many of us are familiar with the idea of pieces of planets and comets landing and falling to Earth, but Jeremy Bellucci at the Swedish Museum of Natural History may have just found the first “terrestrial meteorite,” demonstrating that like a boxer, the Earth can take them as well as give them back.
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