This asteroid was born at the dawn of the solar system
Ryugu might have formed in the very first generation of planetary building blocks
The asteroid Ryugu, studied by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft, might be the oldest known member of the solar system. Unlike most carbon-rich meteorites, Ryugu contains almost no chondrules—tiny millimeter-size beads formed 4.6 billion years ago when the sun first ignited. Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center determined Ryugu's age by analyzing the manganese-chromium dating of dolomite within the asteroid's samples.
Their findings suggest Ryugu formed around 4.565 billion years ago, just a few million years after the solar system's first solids began to clump together. This places Ryugu as part of the first generation of planetesimals, marking it as a rare survivor of the solar system's earliest days. If verified, Ryugu's age and composition could provide crucial insights into how planets formed and whether some asteroids still carry the raw materials from the solar system's birth.
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