A 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite discovered in Victoria, Australia, has given scientists new clues about the early solar system. The meteorite, known as the Maryborough meteorite, was found in 2015 by David Hole, who first thought he had discovered a gold nugget. The rock is much denser than typical minerals and resisted breaking with tools like saw blades, grinders, drills, and even acid. Hole kept the rock for years before taking it to the Melbourne Museum, where geologists Dermot Henry and Bill Birch identified it as a rare extraterrestrial object. The Maryborough meteorite is nearly 39 cm long and weighs 17 kg. It belongs to a class of meteorites called ordinary chondrites, specifically the H5 type. Inside, it contains a matrix made of uniformly crystallized material, with tiny metallic droplets known as chondrules. These chondrules are a key indicator that the material formed in the early solar system, before Earth came into existence. A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria notes that the meteorite’s composition, including minerals like kamacite, taenite, and traces of native copper, confirms its age and that it has not been significantly altered since landing on Earth. Carbon-14 dating from the University of Arizona suggests the meteorite fell to Earth less than 1,000 years ago. However, no crater has been found, and no one has been able to confirm a visual witness of the event. A few newspaper archives from between 1889 and 1951 mention bright fireballs in the area, but the details are not precise enough to link them to the meteorite. It may have gone unnoticed for a long time because it landed in the yellow clays of an eucalyptus forest, blending in with the surroundings. The Maryborough meteorite is the seventeenth meteorite recorded in Victoria, despite the region’s well-known history of gold discoveries during the 19th-century gold rush. Scientists consider it extremely valuable, not for its market price, but for the scientific information it provides. It is believed to have originated from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, possibly after a collision sent it on a path toward Earth. The meteorite would have traveled through the atmosphere at high speed before landing intact in Australian soil.