In that case, it's not exactly remarkable - I think pretty much all the asteroids in the Solar System are 4.6B years old, because that's when they were all created.
It doesn’t appear to have undergone thermal metamorphism, which means it’s been sitting out there, past Mars, untouched, since before any of the planets were created meaning we have the rare opportunity to examine a piece of our primordial past."
Basically, if the wording is correct, that's unusual even for meteorites.
The age of the Earth is accepted as 4.54 +/- 0.05 billion years (determined to within 1%, that is, within 50 million years). That's based on samples of the oldest available Earth rocks, as well as lunar material (much returned by the Apollo missions), and other meteorite finds (Antarctica turns out to be highly effective at revealing meteorites as virtually all recent terrestrial rock is several kilometers under ice).
But the article does indicate that the age and primordial nature of the specimin is the principle interest:
“It doesn’t appear to have undergone thermal metamorphism, which means it’s been sitting out there, past Mars, untouched, since before any of the planets were created meaning we have the rare opportunity to examine a piece of our primordial past.
The one detail the article fails to provide is how the specimin was dated, though at 4.6 billion years, it's about 100 million years older than the highest accepted age of Earth itself. It would represent material from before the era of planetary formation within the early dust cloud from which our Solar System was formed.
It sounds like that's par for the course for this type of meteorite. So it's rare, but not unique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite.
> The carbonaceous chondrites were not exposed to higher temperatures, so that they are hardly changed by thermal processes. Some carbonaceous chondrites, such as the Allende meteorite, contain calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs). These are compounds that emerged early from the primeval solar nebula, condensed out and represent the oldest minerals formed in the solar system .[3][4]
> Some primitive carbonaceous chondrites, such as the CM chondrite Murchison, contain presolar minerals...
It's not clear to me that this is the oldest meteorite found, how it was dated, how it was tracked, etc., etc.
For the technical deets on dating CCs:
What evidence is there that it is not?
Looking out in space is looking back in time. Numerous phenomena support very strong consistency of physical constants to all observable levels. lizknope mentioned on HN recently naturally-occurring fission reactions on Earth about a billion years old or so. Those provide direct physical validation of physical constants as well.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27753154
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
A phenomenon which can arbitrarily change basic perceptions leaving no trace is definitionally beyond the capabilities of an empirical observation to detect. The notion itself is solipsystic and borders on meaninglessness.
The same way as the Earth appears largely flat to the observer standing on it, but from space it is clearly an oblate spheroid.
Science isn't just asking "what if...?" It's following up with "... and how could I demonstrate that?" The third step is then "how do I communicate that to others?"
In the domain of chemistry, there's a wonderful example of that in Michael Faraday's "The Chemical History of a Candle". YouTube's EngineerGuy (Bill Hammack) has a wonderful recreation of Faraday's public demonstration of these properties. It seems obvious and pedestrian now, but that's because Faraday introduced us to these concepts and convinced us, collectively, of their fundamental truth. He gives us the hypothesis, he gives us the observable consequence, and he then demonstrates that consequence. Six-part series starting here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RrHnLXMTOWM
I've already answered your question, as it happens:
Looking out in space is looking back in time. Numerous phenomena support very strong consistency of physical constants to all observable levels. lizknope mentioned on HN recently naturally-occurring fission reactions on Earth about a billion years old or so. Those provide direct physical validation of physical constants as well.
That is, we have zoomed out time, using telescopes, looking back in the Universe 13.772 billion years (9.2 billion older than the Earth's own age). And there's no observable change in any of the fundamental physical constants that we can detect over this range.
But since you've repeated the question twice: why do you ask?
“It’s a scientific fairy-tale. First your friend tracks a meteorite, then finds it and then gifts a bit of this extra-terrestrial material to you to analyse."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks
It is unusual, though, you're right.
The ocean floor is virtually completely newer material, little of it over a 200 million years old (about 5% of Earth's total age), due to subduction. Continental crust is lighter, floats on top of the heavier oceanic crust, and has at least a chance of survival.
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-old-is-the-ocean-floor-3960755
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills
https://www.geologyin.com/2015/11/44-billion-year-old-zircon...
https://www.geologyin.com/2016/03/the-oldest-mountain-on-ear...
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-old-is-the-ocean-floor-3960755