Fireball Down Under: Researchers Uncover Older-Than-Earth Meteorite

When a greenish fireball streaked above the Australian Outback in November, meteorite researchers went hunting for the space rock that caused this cosmic display. The 3.5-lb. (1.6 kilograms) rock likely formed during the birth of the solar system, more than 4.5 billion years ago, the researchers say. "It was an amazing team effort — we got there by the skin of our teeth," Phil Bland, a planetary geologist at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, said in a statement.