Our solar system might be 1.1 million years older than we thought

Jul 15, 2023

A new analysis of small flecks in meteorites calculates the age of the solar system as 4.5684 billion years old, rather than 4.5673 billion

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

1 August 2023

Our solar system is over 4.5 billion years old

Science Photo Library/Alamy

Astronomers have re-calculated the age of our solar system, and found it is very slightly older than we thought – 1.1 million years older, in fact.

That puts our solar system’s age at 4.5684 billion years, rather than 4.5673 billion years. “1.1 million years is a small change,” says Conel Alexander at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC. “But it does have important implications for the origin of the early solar system.”

The earliest objects we can date in the …