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Science 31 October 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5902, pp. 713 - 716
DOI: 10.1126/science.1162459
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Reports

Magnetism on the Angrite Parent Body and the Early Differentiation of Planetesimals

Benjamin P. Weiss,1* James S. Berdahl,1 Linda Elkins-Tanton,1 Sabine Stanley,2 Eduardo A. Lima,1 Laurent Carporzen1

Angrites are among the oldest known pristine basaltic meteorites and record the earliest stages of planet formation and differentiation. Our paleomagnetic analysis of three angrites found that they record a past magnetic field of ~10 microteslas on the angrite parent body extending from 4564 to at least 4558 million years ago. Because the angrite paleomagnetic record extends beyond the expected lifetime of the early circumstellar disk, these paleofields were probably generated internally on the angrite parent body, possibly by an early dynamo in a rapidly formed metallic core.

1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 54-814, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bpweiss{at}mit.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Magnetism of Extraterrestrial Materials.
P. Rochette, B. P. Weiss, and J. Gattacceca (2009)
Elements 5, 223-228
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