Ancient meteorites reveal a powerful force that helped build the Solar System

Ancient grains inside one of the oldest known meteorites reveal that a surprisingly strong magnetic field existed during the solar system’s first 200,000 years. The discovery suggests magnetism worked alongside gravity to help transform a vast cloud of gas and dust into the sun and planetary disk. Ancient meteorites reveal a powerful force that helped build the Solar System.

“It has long been theorized that gravity caused this, but our measurements show magnetism likely played a role,” says Benjamin Weiss. 6 billion years ago, the solar system began as an enormous cloud of gas and dust. Over the next several million years, this "solar nebula" changed dramatically.

The cloud collapsed and flattened into a disk, eventually giving rise to the sun at its center and the planets that formed around it. Gravity has long been considered the main force behind this transformation. New research from MIT, however, suggests that magnetism may also have been an important part of the process.