4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
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Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#2According to BBS Earth Biography series, half of all the water in the world came from a comet colliding to earth some 4 billion years ago.
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#3According to BBS Earth Biography series, half of all the water in the world came from a comet colliding to earth some 4 billion years ago.
BBC?
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#4Dumb question, would finding this just be pot luck, or did they have an idea of what they were looking at before they decided to subject it to the battery of tests?
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#5The article does not seem to touch upon the possibility that the crystal was of extra-terrestrial origin.
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#6I just search a bit about Jack Hills. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills The last modified was last December. The actual paper http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo20... was received last July but published on Fed 23, 2014. So it took a while to confirm and accept by the reviewers using the new technique.
And Jack Hills seems to have caught a lot of attention as early as 2006. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Zircon/ and in this article, 4.4B crystal was mentioned. So the actual paper we are reading today is really about using the new technique to confirm the age of the crystal.
"Among the first important discoveries, says Watson, came out in 2001."
Just think about an art from 10, 50, 100, 1000, 5000 and 10,000 years ago. Then think about this 4.4B years ago. It isn't mind-blown; it's scary to think about time. It takes millions of years for rocks to crush into each other and make a planet. What is it like to see things from 4.4B ago? Then think about the galaxy out there. People, the universe is an awesome and scary place.
Here is another article with an image explaining the idea of 4.4B with a personal phone interview from the primary investigator.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/gem-found-on-austr...
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#7The article does not seem to touch upon the possibility that the crystal was of extra-terrestrial origin.
At that time, I think the distinction is a little more fuzzy. The entire planet was of extraterrestrial origin.
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#8Dumb question, would finding this just be pot luck, or did they have an idea of what they were looking at before they decided to subject it to the battery of tests?
I imagine they would have some idea of the age of the rock layer the crystal was found in and thus be able to approximate the age of the crystal before more advanced aging techniques become involved.
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#9Dumb question, would finding this just be pot luck, or did they have an idea of what they were looking at before they decided to subject it to the battery of tests?
See my edit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7299294
It has been found a long time ago on Jack Hills. But you are right, somehow, someone, a long time ago, walked on Jack Hills and found a crystal pretty old and started calling for interest.
Re: 4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest confirmed piece of Earth
#10Dumb question, would finding this just be pot luck, or did they have an idea of what they were looking at before they decided to subject it to the battery of tests?
See my edit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7299294 It has been found a long time ago on Jack Hills. But you are right, somehow, someone, a long time ago, walked on Jack Hills and found a crystal pretty old and started calling for interest.
It seems like it's a pretty small crystal (largest dimension is about the width of 4 human hairs - if I understand correctly). I'm curious as to how they actually found it...