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Researchers Study Asteroid Samples and Reveal Secrets About the Primordial Solar System, Clarifying Cosmic Events That Have Occurred for Billions of Years
Scientists analyzed grains from the asteroid Ryugu and discovered evidence of a magnetic field that may have influenced the formation of the outer solar system.
The discovery provides clues about how gas giants like Jupiter and Neptune formed. The study, published in AGU Advances, involved researchers from MIT, Caltech, and Harvard.
Asteroid as a Time Capsule
The asteroid Ryugu is a primitive celestial body that originated in the outskirts of the solar system before being captured in the asteroid belt between Mars and Earth. In 2020, Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission brought samples from this asteroid for study.
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The scientists hoped that these grains would contain information about the early conditions of the solar system.
The team looked for signs of ancient magnetic fields to understand if a nebular field existed beyond 7 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. This region is where massive gas planets formed.
Traces of Magnetism in the Outer Solar System
Previous research indicates that the inner solar system had a strong magnetic field, influencing the formation of planets like Earth, Venus, and Mars. However, it was unclear whether this effect extended to the outer solar system.
Using a magnetometer, scientists analyzed Ryugu’s grains to reconstruct its magnetic history. They found that if a magnetic field existed in the region where the giant planets formed, it was weak — estimated at up to 15 microtesla. For comparison, Earth’s magnetic field today is about 50 microtesla.
According to Elias Mansbach, lead author of the study, this nebular magnetic field disappeared about 3 to 4 million years after the formation of the solar system. Even if weak, it may have been sufficient to attract gases and dust, contributing to the formation of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
“This nebular field disappeared about 3 to 4 million years after the formation of the solar system, and we are fascinated by the way it played a role in the initial planetary formation“, Mansbach said.
Comparing with Other Meteorites
The team also compared the data from Ryugu with that of other meteorites that formed in the outer solar system. One of them, classified as an ungrouped carbonaceous chondrite, exhibited a magnetic field of about 5 microtesla.
This similarity suggests that even the more distant regions of the solar nebula had some magnetic influence.
Benjamin Weiss, a planetary scientist at MIT and co-author of the study, emphasized the importance of this finding: “We are showing that wherever we look now, there was some kind of magnetic field that was responsible for bringing mass to where the Sun and planets were forming.”
The discovery challenges older models that suggested a lack of significant magnetic activity in the outer solar system. The data indicate that even in regions far from the Sun, a magnetic field helped shape the formation of gas planets.
The scientists plan to continue analyzing the data from Ryugu and compare it with other space samples. This information may help to better understand how the solar system organized itself in its first few million years.
With information from Daily Galaxy.
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