New Jersey Meteorite Discovery: ‘Extraterrestrial’ Amino Acids and Evidence of Ancient Water by NASA
A meteorite that crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home two years ago may offer new information about the presence of primordial water in the solar system. Weighing more than one kilogram, the fragment is a rare item for science.
The space object was spotted by residents of several states, such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, who reported seeing a fireball streaking across the daytime sky on July 16, 2024. As it passed south of the Statue of Liberty, the event caused a sonic boom felt in New York and New Jersey.
The rock, the size of a heavy carry-on suitcase, is estimated to have crossed the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 32,000 miles per hour (approximately 51,500 km/h).
Unlike other meteorites, this one was particularly fragile and fragmented at an altitude of about 35.4 kilometers. Weather radar at Newark Liberty International Airport detected a cloud of debris falling from Staten Island toward New Jersey.
Only one fragment was recovered, after piercing the ceiling of a master bedroom in a home in Hillsborough, New Jersey.
There were no injuries, and the homeowners acted quickly, using disposable gloves, aluminum foil and glass jars to collect the black fragments and dust that fell onto the bed and carpet, as reported by Peter Jenniskens, senior researcher at the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center.
Jenniskens is the lead author of a study detailing the analysis of the Hillsborough meteorite, recently published in the journal Science Advances.
The owners’ quickness in repairing the roof before the rain that night was a crucial step, as the porous and fragile meteorite tends to absorb water from the air, according to Jenniskens.
This preventative action prevented excessive contamination of the meteorite, allowing scientists to study it in a purer state. Analysis revealed that it is a primitive and rare type of meteorite, offering a window into the early solar system.
“We detected a complex set of amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of proteins, in aqueous extracts from the Hillsborough meteorite,” said study co-author Dr. Danny Glavin, senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Most of the amino acids found at Hillsborough are rare or non-existent in terrestrial life and are therefore of truly extraterrestrial origin.”
Cosmic time capsule: the saline composition of the meteorite
An in-depth analysis of the Hillsborough meteorite classified it as a CM-type carbonaceous chondrite. The “C” indicates its carbonaceous composition, and the “M” refers to the Mighei meteorite, a carbonaceous chondrite that fell in Ukraine in 1889.
These space rocks are remnants of bodies that orbited the solar system in its early stages, containing hydrated minerals and organic compounds.
There are two main types of early CM meteorites — CM1 and CM2 — and the main distinction between them lies in the amount of water-driven change in their composition while they were still attached to a larger asteroid.
The researchers classified the Hillsborough meteorite as CM½, an intermediate category between the two types. Jenniskens highlighted that this is only the second time a CM½ meteorite has been witnessed falling to Earth, and the first time scientists have been able to study such a well-preserved sample. Similar meteorites that fell in Indonesia in 2020, for example, ended up in mud, making analysis difficult.
“It is the first CM-type meteorite that contained pieces of rock that preserved the subsurface of the original asteroid,” Jenniskens said via email. “We really have a unique window here into the physical properties of the parent asteroid.”
The Hillsborough meteorite may have been part of a larger space rock that orbited in the inner asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Jenniskens explained that millions of years ago, a significant family of asteroids formed after a large collision. About 6 million years ago, a smaller collision destroyed one of these asteroids, and one of its fragments ended up in near-Earth orbit. This piece was exposed to heating and cooling cycles as it rotated under sunlight, fragmenting approximately 200,000 years ago, until it reached the planet.
The researchers detected high concentrations of sodium, likely coming from icy brines inside the original asteroid. As the water evaporated from the space rock, it left behind concentrated saline minerals, which could create molecules fundamental to life as we know it, the study found.
The team also identified organic carbon and complex amino acids in the material.
“There are hundreds of amino acids in this meteorite, and most of them do not occur naturally on Earth,” Glavin wrote in an email. “The set of amino acids at Hillsborough was even more diverse than those found in pure samples from carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu and Ryugu.”
Researchers are currently working to identify the salt minerals within the Hillsborough meteorite and compare them to those found in samples collected from Bennu and Ryugu, during NASA’s OSIRIS-REx missions in 2020 and Japan’s Hayabusa2 in 2019, respectively.
Fragments of the Hillsborough meteorite are being preserved at the American Museum for Natural History in New York.
The role of meteorites in delivering the ingredients for life
Primitive carbonaceous chondrites are believed to be the type of space rocks that collided with early Earth, delivering organic matter.
The Hillsborough meteorite “provides further evidence that the delivery of organic matter by meteorites to early Earth could have been an important source of organic molecules necessary for the origin of life,” Glavin said.
The discovery of brine on the asteroid is a crucial point, noted Peter Brown, professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Western University in Canada, describing it as a residue of “percolating water or ice.” Brown was not involved in the study.
Brown explained that brine “is a very strong indicator of how water moved, evolved and, in particular, how it reacted with organic substances.”
“Everything we can learn about how water alters this type of early meteorite is super important for astrobiology and early biology on Earth,” he added.
Water may have been preserved beneath the surface of the Hillsborough meteorite’s parent asteroid for a long period, he said.
Meteorites like the one from Hillsborough contain the chemistry of the early solar system because, although modified by water, they have not been subjected to much heating, Brown said. Holding a meteorite like this is more like having crumbling soil or clay rather than solid rock, which reflects its little exposure to heat — and a greater chance of preserving a portrait of how water interacted with minerals and organics.
The owners’ quick and informed actions allowed the detection of the brine in the first place, Brown noted. The rain would likely cause the disintegration of any other meteorite fragments that fell in the open air.
The owners quickly contacted Mike Hankey, study co-author and member of the American Meteor Society, who advised them on how to preserve the sample and minimize contamination.
“We knew almost immediately that what happened to us was incredibly rare, and we felt a responsibility to preserve the meteorite for the scientific community,” shared the owners, who preferred to remain anonymous to protect their privacy. “It’s still surreal to think that this meteorite traveled through space for millions of years before ending its journey in our home. The entire experience has been incredible, and we are honored to have played a small role in advancing scientific understanding through its study.”
Reporting doorbell or dashboard camera videos of sightings of possible fireballs can help researchers track and collect meteorites, ultimately improving their understanding of how the solar system evolved.
