What is the oldest thing I could ever touch?
A meteorite! Many are about 4.5 billion years old, older than any rock on Earth and older than the Earth itself.
If you want to touch something truly ancient, a meteorite is your best chance.
Most meteorites formed about 4.5 billion years ago, when the Sun was young and the planets were just being built. That is far older than the dinosaurs, which lived between about 230 and 66 million years ago. It is older than the oldest rocks on Earth, which are around 4 billion years old. And it is older than Earth's surface itself, because our planet has been reshaped so many times.
Some meteorites contain little white blobs called calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions, or CAIs. They have been dated to about 4,567 million years ago, and they are the oldest solid things that formed in our Solar System. Scientists use them to measure the age of the Solar System.
Some meteorites contain even older specks of dust, made around other stars before our Sun was born. They are far too small to see, but they are there.
To get a feeling for how old 4.5 billion years is, imagine counting one number every second. To reach 4.5 billion, you would have to count, day and night without stopping, for more than 140 years.