The meteorite was discovered in the Sahara Desert in Morocco six years ago, and scientists have been studying it since then.

The chunk of rock contains small pieces of material containing calcium and aluminium. Experts think that these pockets of material were among the first solids to form from the gases that our solar system developed from.

Researchers writing in Nature Geoscience explain how they worked out the age of the rock. Pieces of uranium in the rock act as an atomic ‘clock’, because they decay radioactively at a known rate. By working out the different amounts of decay products, scientists could figure out how long ago the rock formed.

“It’s like crime-scene investigation four-and-a-half billion years after the scene is vacated,” says researcher Alan Boss.