Records of Magnetic Fields in the Chondrule Formation Environment

Chondrules contain ferromagnetic minerals that may retain a record of the magnetic field environments in which they cooled. Paleomagnetic experiments on separated chondrules can potentially reveal the presence of remanent magnetization from the time of chondrule formation. The existence of such a magnetization places quantitative bounds on the frequency of interchondrule collisions, while the intensity of magnetization may be used to infer the strength of nebular magnetic fields and thereby constrain the mechanism of chondrule formation. Recent advances in laboratory instrumentation and techniques have permitted the isolation of nebular remanent magnetization in chondrules, providing the potential basis to probe the formation environments of chondrules from a range of chondrite classes.