Topic
The processes by which the solar nebula collapsed into a protoplanetary disk, forming the sun and planets through gravity and magnetic fields.
An MIT-led team reports remanent magnetization in calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions from an Antarctic meteorite, pushing the earliest known nebular field ten times closer to time zero.
Reality
MIT researchers found magnetic traces in meteorite grains from the solar system's first 200,000 years that point to a field stronger than Earth's today. That places magnetism in the nebula while the sun was forming, though how much of the collapse it drove is still an estimate.
Reality
An ETH Zurich lab measured iron, titanium and chromium in its share of the OSIRIS-REx return and found the same dust reservoir that produced Ryugu and the rare CI meteorites, a composition matching neither the inner nor the outer solar system.
Reality
Yale researchers read the original makeup of planetesimals that melted so thoroughly their textures vanished, and place the Solar System's preference for heat-formed rock beads inside the first million years.
Reality
A Yale-led team could not sample planetesimals from the first million years, because every one of them melted, so it reconstructed their make-up from sulfur and iron oxidation in iron meteorites and got 8% to 17% icy dust.
Reality