More than 4.5 billion years ago, the solar system was little more than a collapsing cloud of gas and dust. Gravity has long been considered the main force responsible for turning that material into the Sun and the disk that eventually produced the planets.

New evidence suggests that gravity was not working alone. Tiny mineral grains preserved inside an exceptionally primitive meteorite have recorded a surprisingly strong magnetic field from the earliest stages of solar-system formation.

Meteorites Preserve Ancient Clues

Researchers studied a carbon-rich meteorite known as DOM 08006, which was discovered in Antarctica in 2008.

Inside it are microscopic structures called calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions, or CAIs.

These inclusions are among the oldest solid materials ever identified from the solar system. They formed within roughly the first 20,000 to 200,000 years of its history, before Earth and the other planets existed.

Because some of the grains contain iron-bearing minerals, they can preserve information about the magnetic environment in which they formed.

The Ancient Field Was Strong

Using highly sensitive instruments, researchers measured the residual magnetism trapped inside several of the inclusions. Their results indicate that the early solar nebula contained a magnetic field of roughly 150 to 600 microtesla.сFor comparison, Earth’s present magnetic field is generally around 25 to 65 microtesla at the surface.

That means the ancient field recorded by the meteorite may have been several times stronger than the magnetic field surrounding Earth today.

This is among the earliest direct evidence that strong magnetism existed while the Sun itself was still forming.

Magnetism Could Move Gas Inward

A magnetic field can influence electrically charged particles inside a young star-forming cloud.

As the early solar nebula rotated, magnetic forces may have helped transfer angular momentum and move gas inward toward the growing Sun.

Planetary scientist Cauê Borlina has explained that simulations predict stronger magnetic fields can significantly increase the rate at which material falls onto a young star.

During the Sun’s earliest stage, it may have accumulated hundreds of Earth masses of gas each year.

The newly measured field appears strong enough for magnetism to have contributed meaningfully to that process.

Gravity Still Remains Essential

The findings do not mean scientists are replacing gravity with magnetism. Gravity still caused the original cloud to collapse and remains fundamental to how stars and planets form.

Instead, the study suggests that models focusing primarily on gravity may be incomplete.

Magnetic fields could have helped control how quickly material moved inward, how the cloud flattened into a rotating disk and perhaps how matter was distributed within that disk.

The Evidence Comes From One Meteorite

There is an important limitation. The measurements come from a small number of inclusions preserved within one unusually primitive meteorite.

Astrophysicists have therefore cautioned that similar measurements from other ancient meteorites will be needed before scientists can determine how widespread and uniform the magnetic field was.

Different regions of the early solar nebula may also have experienced different field strengths.

A New Ingredient In Solar History

The discovery pushes evidence for solar-system magnetism back to almost the beginning of its formation.

Earlier studies had detected magnetic fields in material formed millions of years later, when the Sun and its surrounding disk were already more developed.

Now, researchers have evidence that magnetism was present during the much earlier transition from a collapsing cloud to a young stellar system.

That makes magnetic fields more than a minor detail in the story of our origins.

They may have been one of the forces that helped turn a chaotic cloud of dust and gas into the structured solar system we recognize today.