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Asteroid family is as old as the Solar System itself
To date, astronomers haven't seen asteroid families (that is, asteroids with a common source) in the Solar System older than about 3 billion years -- well after the star system came to be 4.5 billion years ago. However, they'll have to rethink their expectations. Researchers studying asteroid data (including infrared radiation from the WISE space telescope) have found an asteroid family that's over 4 billion years years old, and likely as old as the Solar System itself. The trick was to both rule out existing asteroid families and look for the telltale signs of a very, very old group of rocks.
