This space graphite somehow demonstrates unexpected magnetic properties. From the Nature paper "Canyon Diablo is classified as a silicate-bearing IAB iron . The origin of this group is puzzling, but it may have involved catastrophic mixing of the molten iron core of an asteroid in a collision with a chondritic body in the first few million years of the Solar System" and the conclusion: "The implications of ferromagnetic carbon, whatever its origin, are likely to be wide- reaching—this material could be a zero-gap, high-temperature, ferromagnetic semiconductor. With this new sighting of strongly ferromagnetic meteoritic carbon, we look forward to rapid developments in the area of carbon-based magnetism."

It was the monumental force of the asteroid's impact — traveling at approximately 10 miles-per-second — that resulted in its nickel-iron matrix being melted and injected with an immense burst of pressure into the graphite, fully penetrating the cracks and fissures. Exquisitely ornamental, this is an extraordinary artifact of a cataclysmic collision frozen in time, recently estimated to have happened 4 billion years ago (<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/maps.13464" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Meteoritics</a>, April 2020). Canyon Diablo meteorites are renowned for containing these graphite nodules, oblong inclusions of graphite scattered throughout the metallic matrix.