Scientists found salt and amino acids inside a meteorite that hit a New Jersey home

Inside the fragments of a meteorite that crashed through a New Jersey roof in 2024, scientists have found organic materials, amino acids and traces of salt-rich minerals, offering fresh clues about the chemical environment that existed before life appeared on Earth. The compounds do not prove that living organisms existed inside the rock, but they show what raw ingredients were available in the early solar system.

The meteorite, which struck a home in Hillsborough on 16 July 2024, was tracked back to a rare group known as CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrites. These meteorites formed close to 4.5 billion years ago, during the earliest stages of the solar system, and retain chemical traces from a time before planets had formed. Certain parts of the Hillsborough meteorite show the effects of past reactions with water, while other parts remain largely unaltered, placing it between the CM1 and CM2 classifications.

The salt deposits found within the meteorite are considered one of the more interesting discoveries. They suggest that the asteroid the meteorite came from may once have had areas where liquid water collected and later evaporated, leaving minerals and salts behind. Some theories about the origins of life propose that meteorites carrying carbon-based molecules and water-altered minerals could have delivered key ingredients to the young Earth, and the Hillsborough sample gives scientists a chance to study that process directly.

The meteorite’s arrival was dramatic. A bright object streaked across the eastern United States sky, accompanied by a loud sonic boom heard from New York to New Jersey. Estimated at around 50 kilograms before it broke apart in the atmosphere, one fragment eventually punched through the roof and ceiling of a bedroom in the Hillsborough home.

The condition of the sample owes a great deal to how it was handled after landing. The homeowner wore gloves and placed the fragments in containers instead of touching them directly, limiting contamination from skin oils and moisture that typically degrade carbon-rich meteorites. While some pieces did pick up minor traces of the roof and carpet, much of the original material remained intact, and scientists have described the fragments as among the best-preserved examples of their type collected in recent years.

To understand where the object came from, researchers combined public videos, security camera recordings and weather radar data from Newark Airport, which detected a trail of smaller fragments falling across the region as the meteorite broke apart. The findings point to an origin in the inner region of the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/by James St. John