It is the oldest known example of magma from space, and is about 4.565 million years old. In other words, we are looking at a piece of material from space older than planet Earth itself .
As if that were not enough, very little is done, in May 2020, in Adrar, Algeria.
Remains of a protoplanet
As a new study published in PNAS reveals, this chunk of space magma, named Erg Chech 002 (EC 002), likely originated in our early solar system from the crust of a protoplanet, a large rocky body in the process of becoming a planet.
EC 002 is an achondrite, a type of meteorite that comes from a parent body with a distinct crust and core, and its chemical composition reveals that it emerged from a partially molten magma deposit in the parent body’s crust .
To date, no object with similar spectral characteristics has been identified, as stated by the researchers who conducted the study:
This meteorite is the oldest magmatic rock analyzed to date and sheds light on the formation of the primordial crusts that covered the oldest protoplanets.