Hi All

Yes the number was 4567 million x pi. The new date for the solar system is ~ 4567 megayears old, and the solar nebula apparently had been blown away by ~ 4565 megayears ago. In that time the gas giants had to form their cores and capture their hydro/helium atmospheres - no mean feat.

A multiplier of ~ 3 is probably just coincidental, but it does make me wonder what the real cause for our apparent closeness in cosmic time to the Big Bang is really. Why 3? Why not 300? The two timespans seem close enough together to have some causal process behind it. The apparent decline in gamma-ray bursts and star-formation since ~ 5 gigayear ago makes an attractive possible linkage.

Adam