Meteorite that crashed through New Jersey house could hold the clues to life's origins

from
https://www.space.com/astronomy/meteorite-that-crashed-through-new-jersey-house-could-hold-the-clues-to-lifes-origins

Meteorite that crashed through New Jersey house could hold the clues to 
life's origins
News
By Chelsea Gohd
Published 20 hours ago
"Thanks to the homeowner’s quick reaction, these are the most pristine 
CM1/2 meteorites we know of."

A fragment of the Hillsborough meteorite.
A view of the Hillsborough meteorite. (Image credit: SETI Institute)

A space rock exploded through a bedroom ceiling in New Jersey, and 
scientists have now traced its origins to a strange, briny asteroid once 
visited by a NASA mission.

Two years ago on July 16, 2024 in the middle of the afternoon, a sonic 
boom shook New York City as a fireball streaked through the sky. The 
culprit? A rock the size of a heavy airline bag weighing roughly 110 
pounds (50 kilograms). The meteorite hurtled over the east coast before 
crash-landing in a house in Hillsborough, New Jersey where the homeowner 
found it, reeking of sulfur. In studying this meteorite, scientists 
think that it could have come from the surface of an asteroid where 
liquid saltwater could have rested, possibly providing clues to life's 
origins on Earth.

"In a way, you can think of it as smelling the origins of life's 
atmosphere," lead author and meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the 
SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center, told Space.com.

Despite its sulfuric stench, in a stroke of absolute luck, this 
meteorite crashed into the right house. After traveling through our 
atmosphere and heating up, searing through the sky and then crashing 
through a roof and then a bedroom ceiling, the meteorite broke apart 
into pieces. The homeowner not only sprung into action to collect these 
pieces of space rock into jars, they did so with gloves, protecting the 
rocks and keeping them remarkably well-preserved.

"He had the wherewithal to put on gloves and take out jars," Jenniskens 
said. "And for this type of meteorite, carbonaceous chondroits, it's 
very important because they just suck in every moisture you can think 
[of]." So if he would've handled the rocks with his bare hands, oils or 
moisture from his hands could have completely contaminated the rock, 
which is common in found meteorites. The homeowner also thought to call 
the American Meteor Society very quickly after recovering the rocks, 
making these samples unusually pristine.

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Of course, some of the rocks were found to have some fiberglass and even 
carpet remnants on them after crashing through the roof of a house, 
Jenniskens said. But the integrity of the meteorites was still 
incredibly well-preserved for scientific investigation.

What did they find in these space rocks?
Once the rock fragments were collected, they were brought in for 
analysis led by co-author Mike Zolensky, a meteoriticist at NASA's 
Johnson Space Center. And they found the now-dubbed "Hillsborough 
meteorite" to be full of organic compounds created through chemical 
reactions with minerals also present in the rock as well as amino acids. 
They also found that the rock was more altered by water than other 
meteorites of its kind.

They classified the meteorite as a CM2 carbonaceous chondrite, which are 
primitive meteorites that formed in the early solar system. But CM2 
meteorites typically come from parent asteroids that haven't been 
significantly altered by water. Another type of meteorite known as CM1 
typically comes from asteroids with water. The Hillsborough meteorite 
doesn't fit neatly into either category.

Despite being a CM2, they found evidence that its parent asteroid must 
have had water, leading them to further classify this rock as a CM1/2, a 
category between 1 and 2. This is only the second meteorite of this type 
observed on Earth.

"Thanks to the homeowner’s quick reaction, these are the most pristine 
CM1/2 meteorites we know of," Jenniskens said in a statement.

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They also found small, salty fragments inside the meteorite, leading the 
researchers to conclude that this rock may have come from a near-surface 
area of its parent asteroid, where liquid water evaporated and salt 
accumulated. A salty, briny asteroid.

This salty brine on the rock's parent asteroid could be an important 
piece to study, as researchers think that such a brine could ignite the 
chemical reactions between organic molecules and minerals that could 
create life. Some theories suggest that life on Earth began thanks to 
minerals and molecules deposited by crashing meteorites, and further 
study of such a well-preserved piece of a briny asteroid could help to 
put those pieces together.

And while the team doesn't know the full story behind the organic 
compounds and amino acids found in this rock, early analysis suggests 
that the amino acids present formed on the rock's parent asteroid with 
the help of chemical reactions in this briny environment.

Another major finding came from information from even before the crash. 
Thanks to reports from members of the public and footage from cameras 
(even doorbell cameras) across the eastern U.S., experts led by 
Jenniskens were able to piece together the trajectory of the object. 
Doppler weather radar at Newark Airport even helped to put the pieces 
together, detecting a long trail of pebbles stretching from Staten 
Island to New Jersey falling from the rock as it fell apart and out of 
the sky. This combined intel provided experts with the object's speed, 
and the direction from which it came.

In piecing together the rocks' trajectory, "we can say where they came 
from in the asteroid belt," Jenniskens said. "This one seemed to have 
come out of the inner asteroid belt."

In fact, he added that this meteorite's parent asteroid likely came from 
an area of the asteroid belt already observed in a flyby by NASA's Lucy 
mission, which is exploring the asteroids of the solar system. Could it 
be possible that Lucy observed the same bit of rock that ended up in a 
bedroom in New Jersey?

Jenniskens added that "If you hear about a meteorite fall in your area, 
please check your dash cams and video cameras and security ring 
[cameras], and even your cell phones." Who knows, you might have even 
accidentally captured footage that helps researchers to better 
understand a mysterious rock from space.

And if you live in the greater New York City area and want to get a 
closer look at this space rock, some of the meteorite fragments will be 
on display, curated at the American Museum of Natural History.

This work was described in a study published in the journal Science 
Advances.

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Comment by Chas LeJardiniere.

CL

Chas LeJardiniere
10 hrs ago
Your Dismiss button the Notifications popup doesn't work! Guess you're 
not exactly rocket scientists after all, LOL!

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Comment by DXH20.

DX

DXH20
12 hrs ago
how do they know that the water molecules didn’t come from our own 
atmosphere?

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Reply by _Philip B.

_B

_Philip B
12 hrs ago
Reply to DXH20
wouldn't happen deep inside.

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Comment by Eric .

Er

Eric
13 hrs ago
Just Stop It !!

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Comment by JediJack.

Je

JediJack
19 hrs ago
Pop-up ads absolutely, positively ruined the enjoyment I could have had 
reading this article.