The oldest rocks you can hold
Most meteorites are older than any rock on Earth.
Our Solar System began about 4.6 billion years ago. It started as a huge spinning cloud of gas and dust around the young Sun.
The dust began to stick together. Tiny grains made pebbles, pebbles made boulders, and boulders made asteroids and planets.
Some asteroids stayed small and never melted. They still contain the very first rocky material from that cloud, almost unchanged.
Pieces of these asteroids fall to Earth as meteorites called chondrites. If you look inside one with a magnifying glass, you can often see tiny round grains, like little beads. They are called chondrules. They formed as melted droplets, floating in space, before Earth existed.
Earth's own oldest rocks have mostly been melted, squashed or worn away over time. But most meteorites are around 4.6 billion years old.
So if you hold a chondrite, you are holding something older than Earth itself.
Chondrules are usually about 1 millimetre across, about the size of a pinhead.