地球上最古老的物质

Scientists have analyzed stardust

from a meteorite that fell to Earth 50 years ago, and according to their calculations, the 5- to 7-billion-year-old stardust is the oldest solid material ever found on Earth.

科学家分析了一些50年前落到地球上的星际尘埃根据他们的计算，50到70亿年的星尘是地球上发现的最古老的固体物质。

"This is one of the most exciting studies I've worked on," Philipp Heck, lead author of a new paper, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.

“这是我从事过的最激动人心的研究之一，”菲利普赫克在一份声明中说，他是周一发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上的一篇新论文的主要作者。

"These are the oldest solid materials ever found, and they tell us about how stars formed in our galaxy," he said.

“这些是迄今为止发现的最古老的固体物质，它们告诉我们恒星是如何在我们的星系中形成的，”他说。

When stars die, the gas and dust that comprise them fly off into space, eventually forming new stars, planets, moons and meteorites.

当恒星死亡时，组成它们的气体和尘埃飞向太空，最终形成新的恒星、行星、卫星和陨石。

Inside the meteorite, which crash landed in Australia in 1969, were what are known as presolar grains, formed before the sun was born.

1969年坠落在澳大利亚的这块陨石内部，存在着所谓的前太阳系颗粒，形成于太阳诞生之前。

Trapped inside the meteorite, they give scientists a picture of history before the solar system was formed.

它们被困在陨石里，给科学家提供了太阳系形成前的历史图景。

In comparison to the stardust, the sun is 4.6 billion years old, and the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.

与星尘相比，太阳有46亿年，地球有45亿年。

"I always wanted to do astronomy with geological samples I can hold in my hand," said Heck, who is also a curator at Chicago's Field Museum and an associate professor at the University of Chicago.

赫克说:“我一直想用手边的地质样本来研究天文学。”他同时也是芝加哥菲尔德博物馆的馆长和芝加哥大学的副教授。

"Stardust is the oldest material to reach Earth, and from it, we can learn about our parent stars, the origin of the carbon in our bodies, the origin of the oxygen we breathe. With stardust, we can trace that material back to the time before the sun," he said.

“星尘是到达地球的最古老的物质，通过它，我们可以了解我们的母星，我们体内碳的来源，我们呼吸的氧气的来源。通过“星尘”，我们可以追溯到太阳出现之前。”他说道。

问题

文中提到这颗最远古的星尘有多少年岁月了呢？

留言回复正确答案，前十名朋友可以获得红包奖励哦，赶快来试试吧！

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