Extraterrestrial liquid water not. Similar indirect evidence, however, supports the existence of liquids below the surface of several moons and dwarf planets elsewhere in the Solar System. Some are speculated to be large extraterrestrial "oceans". Liquid water is thought to be common in other planetary systems, despite the lack of conclusive evidence, and there is a growing list of extrasolar candidates for liquid water. As of December 2015, the confirmed liquid water in the Solar System outside Earth is 25-50 times the volume of Earth's water (1.3 billion cubic kilometers). Water on Mars exists today almost exclusively as ice, with a small amount
Formation and evolution of the Solar System 98% of its mass. The remaining 2% of the mass consisted of heavier elements that were created by nucleosynthesis in earlier generations of stars. Late in the life of these stars, they ejected heavier elements into the interstellar medium. The oldest inclusions found in meteorites, thought to trace the first solid material to form in the pre-solar nebula, are 4568.2 million years old, which is one definition of the age of the Solar System. Studies of ancient meteorites reveal traces of stable daughter nuclei of short-lived isotopes, such as iron-60, that only form in exploding, short-lived stars. This indicates that