Because of the accumulated shortcomings of carbon-14, scientists devised other methods of dating ancient materials, among them thermoluminescence, which measures electrons trapped in clays, and electron spin resonance, which involves bombarding a sample with electromagnetic waves and measuring the vibrations of the electrons. But even the best of these could not date anything older than about two hundred thousand years, and they couldn’t date inorganic materials like rocks at all, which is of course what you need to do if you wish to determine the age of your planet.
Thermoluminisense method of dating materials
