A meteorite found in the Sahara Desert last year – specifically Adrar, Algeria – was actually part of a protoplanet (a rocky body in the process of forming into a planet) in our solar system and dates back before Earth was even formed. The piece of volcanic rock, which has been named Erg Chech 002 (or EC 002), is more than a million years older than the previous-oldest meteorite ever found.
According to the Lunar and Planetary Institute, the fragments of EC 002 were “relatively coarse grained, tan and beige” with some crystals that were “larger green, yellow-green and less commonly yellow-brown”.
It is composed of a rock called andesite that is pretty much only found in subduction zones here on Earth (locations where tectonic plates collided with each other that resulted with one of them going underneath the other). Interestingly, meteorites very rarely contain andesite and are mostly created by a different volcanic rock called basalt. Detailed analysis of the meteorite revealed that 4.566 billion years ago, it was molten before taking about 100,000 years to cool down and solidify. To put this into better perspective, Earth is 4.54 billion years old.