Extraterrestrial liquid water to have water, including liquid pressurised by non-atmospheric means, dissolved into mineral through ionising radiation. Water has also been found to flow on the large asteroid 4 Vesta heated through periodic impacts. Most known extrasolar planetary systems appear to have very different compositions to the Solar System, though there is probably sample bias arising from the detection methods. The goal of current searches is to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of their planetary systems (also sometimes called the "Goldilocks zone"). Planets with oceans could include Earth-sized moons of giant planets, though it remains speculative whether such 'moons' really
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