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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 8309842, member: 27832&quot;]I guess it comes down to what you mean by &quot;formed&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://science.nasa.gov/origin-elements" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://science.nasa.gov/origin-elements" rel="nofollow">The Origin of Elements</a></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://science.nasa.gov/files/science-pink/s3fs-public/styles/image_gallery_scale_960w/public/atoms/Nucleosynthesis2_WikipediaCmglee_1080_0.jpg?itok=3oUbxDmj" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Nearly all of the matter we can see and touch &quot;predates the solar system&quot; if you&#039;re talking about the individual atoms. When we talk about old <i>objects</i>, I think most people are thinking about &quot;a lump of stuff that&#039;s been the same general shape since X&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>From that point of view, a billion-year-old <i>rock</i> is really old because it&#039;s <i>been a rock</i> for a billion years. Its atoms are older than that. So are the atoms in the fingers I&#039;m using to type this. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>The atoms in that gold formed before the solar system, but they didn&#039;t form lumps of metal until they condensed, and then got concentrated through geological activity -- chemical changes to their surroundings, physical pressure, erosion, and so on. So from <i>that</i> point of view, they aren&#039;t pre-solar.</p><p><br /></p><p>As far as we know, we don&#039;t have any lumps of stuff that came <i>as lumps</i> from outside the Solar System, although <a href="https://earthsky.org/space/interstellar-meteor-papua-new-guinea-2014-u-s-space-command/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://earthsky.org/space/interstellar-meteor-papua-new-guinea-2014-u-s-space-command/" rel="nofollow">there&#039;s a slight chance that may be about to change</a>. All the lumps we&#039;ve examined so far were thoroughly chewed during the process of Solar System formation, and almost all a lot more recently than that.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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