How old is Mars?

Short answer: About 4.6 billion years old.

Long answer: The Sun, the planets and almost everything else in our Solar System were all formed together from a spinning cloud of dust and gas1. Our current best estimate is that this happened around 4.6 billion years ago, which means that Mars is that old.

In other words, with a few exceptions such as moons and asteroids that may have formed more slowly, everything in our Solar System is the same age: 4.6 billion years old.

See also:

Page information

Author: Dave Owen

Footnotes

1. According to the "Nebular hypothesis". See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebular_hypothesis

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