The meteorite was found in the Sahara desert.

New tests show this rock is the oldest piece of Mars ever found at 4.4 billion years old.

That's almost as old as the solar system itself, which formed 4.6 billion years ago. Previously the rock was thought to be only 2 billion years old.

Plenty of Martian meteorites have fallen to Earth before, but none are anywhere near this old. This is also the first rock we've got our hands on from the planet's ancient crust, so scientists will be able to learn a lot from it.

Which is good because, until we send a rover to Mars to dig up and bring back a piece of the red planet, meteorites are the only thing we've got.

Luc Labenne / Via Nature

LINK: The full paper is published today in the journal Nature.