Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey home

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Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey home

Press Releases<br>Meteorites<br>Peter Jenniskens<br>JAMSTEC

Wednesday, Jul 15, 2026

Fragment of the Hillsborough meteorite, broken on impact, with fusion crust from passing at high speed through the Earth’s atmosphere.

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At a Glance

A meteorite crashed through the roof of a Hillsborough, New Jersey home on July 16, 2024.

The meteorite, named Hillsborough , is only the second observed fall of a rare primitive CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite , making it one of the most scientifically valuable meteorites ever recovered.

The meteorite's pristine condition, preserved by the homeowner immediately after impact, allowed scientists to study fragile minerals and organic compounds rarely seen in recovered meteorites.

Researchers found preserved bits from near the surface of the original asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids—a process not previously known from this type of asteroid.

Hillsborough contains a diverse suite of carbon-bearing compounds, amino acids, and other prebiotic molecules that help scientists understand what building blocks of life may have been delivered to the early Earth.

The findings provide new insight into the role of water, brines, and asteroid chemistry in shaping the organic inventory of the early solar system.

The international research team's results are published in Science Advances .

July 15, 2026, Mountain View, CA -- On July 16, 2024 a daytime meteor shook New York City with a sonic boom as it passed just south of the Statue of Liberty. Now, an international team of researchers reports in the journal Science Advances that a short time later, a more than two-pound meteorite crashed through the roof of a house in the town of Hillsborough, New Jersey.

"A forensic study of the fragments revealed that they contained preserved bits from near the surface of a small primitive asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids—a process not previously known from this type of proto planet world," said lead author and meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

The Meteorite Fall

On that day, a rock the size of a heavy airline bag entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 32,000 miles/h (14.4 kilometers per second). Sixty observers from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania reported seeing the meteor to the American Meteor Society, while sixteen in New York and New Jersey felt the shockwave.

"Our cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania, as well as a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey, captured the meteor, and from that we measured its trajectory," said American Meteor Society operations manager Mike Hankey. "The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."

Daytime meteor (left), impact site and a fragment of the Hillsborough meteorite.

The rock was fragile and quickly broke into pieces. The meteor stopped being visible at an altitude of 22 miles (35 kilometers). After it faded, a Doppler weather radar at Newark Airport briefly detected a long cloud of falling pebbles stretching from Staten Island into New Jersey. Hillsborough was at the far end of that cloud, where the largest rocks came down. Only one was recovered because it hit a house.

The owner of the house described the scene as follows: "I was at home at the time, heard a loud crash and found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom. I smelled a strong sulfur-like odor and saw many black fragments along with debris and black dust that covered my bed, carpet and surrounding areas.”

He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars.

Evidence of Ancient Brines

When scientists examined the rocks, they determined it belonged to one of two known types of primitive meteorites called CM-type carbonaceous chondrites, where the letter "M" refers to the Mighei meteorite that fell in Ukraine in 1889.

According to paper co-author Mike Zolensky, a meteoriticist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, analysis of the Hillsborough meteorite found fragments that were more extensively altered by water  on the meteorite's parent asteroid than is typically seen in CM2 carbonaceous chondrites and classified the specimen as a CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite, an intermediate classification between petrographic types CM1 and CM2.

Hillsborough is the 22nd observed CM-type meteorite fall, but only the second witnessed fall of a CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite, following the Kolang meteorite that fell in North Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2020. All others are CM2-types. No CM1-type falls have been witnessed.

"Thanks to the homeowner's quick reaction,...