Iron and its alloys have made modern civilization possible, with metallic meteorites providing one of the human’s earliest sources of usable iron as well as providing a window into our solar system’s billion-year history. Here highest-resolution tools reveal the existence of a previously hidden FeNi nanophase within the extremely slowly cooled metallic meteorite NWA 6259. This new nanophase exists alongside Ni-poor and Ni-rich nanoprecipitates within a matrix of tetrataenite, the uniaxial, chemically ordered form of FeNi. The ferromagnetic nature of the nanoprecipitates combined with the antiferromagnetic character of the FeNi nanophases gives rise to a complex magnetic state that evolves dramatically with temperature. These observations extend and possibly alter our understanding of celestial metallurgy, provide new knowledge concerning the archetypal Fe–Ni phase diagram and supply new information for the development of new types of sustainable, technologically critical high-energy magnets.

中文翻译：

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金属陨石中隐藏的原子尺度结构的发现及其意义

铁及其合金使现代文明成为可能，金属陨石提供了人类最早的可用铁来源之一，并为我们提供了了解太阳系十亿年历史的窗口。在这里，最高分辨率的工具揭示了在极慢冷却的金属陨石 NWA 6259 中存在先前隐藏的 FeNi 纳米相。这种新的纳米相与贫镍和富镍的纳米沉淀物一起存在于四带铁矿的基质中，这是单轴的化学有序形式铁镍。纳米沉淀物的铁磁性质与 FeNi 纳米相的反铁磁特性相结合，产生了一种复杂的磁态，该磁态随温度急剧变化。这些观察扩展并可能改变我们对天体冶金学的理解，