14 DAY TRIAL // Experts from Israel, the United States and Japan say that the solar system may have established itself in its current configuration faster than originally calculated. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, while Earth's age is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years.
Though establishing with certainty how all objects orbiting the Sun formed, and when, may not seem like such an important issue, learning more about these aspects could lead to the development of better models explaining how extrasolar planets form around other stars.
The new results were obtained by analyzing the half-life of samarium-146 (146Sm) nuclei. This chemical element is extremely slow-paced in its decay. For comparison, carbon-14 – the isotope used to date prehistoric artifacts – can only endure for a few thousand years. Samarium is much longer-lived.
What experts found is that the half-life of 146Sm is not 103 million years, as previously calculated, but only 68 million years, Astrobiology Magazine reports. This means that all dating studies based on the previous values need to be carried out again.