Was just watching a report on Osiris Rex project where the sent a rocket up to collect a sample of the asteroid and bring it back. They said that the asteroid was older than Earth itself. I think they said something like 4.5 billion years old. How can they know that?
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Various radioactive isotopes decay with rates that can vary from nanoseconds to trillions of years. Find some that are useful for the span of time that you are researching, and do the math.
Agreed that they can compare isotopes, but also, nearly everything in our solar system is roughly that age. The sun is ~4.6 billion years old, and by ~4.5 bya most of the space dust in the area had packed itself into planets and asteroids due to gravity. Planets typically taking longer because obviously they’re larger. In the grand scheme of things, space is a lot of nothing, so most of those rogue asteroids have just kinda floated around unchanging since.
Who knew math could help us dig up the cosmic Tinder profiles? Science, you never cease to amaze!
Who knew math could help us time travel through asteroids! Science, you’re always keeping us on our toes!
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