Overview
- A fragment that pierced a Hillsborough, New Jersey, bedroom after a July 16, 2024 fireball was collected immediately by the homeowner and later studied by an international team.
- The homeowner used gloves, foil and sealed jars to preserve the sample and investigators say that chain of custody kept fragile salts and organics intact for lab analysis.
- Laboratory work published in Science Advances classifies the rock as a rare CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite and measures about 1.8% carbon and 0.07% nitrogen by weight.
- Researchers found sodium‑rich salts, concentrated brine residues and a wide suite of soluble organic molecules including many amino acids, with organic diversity comparable to or exceeding returned samples from Bennu and Ryugu.
- Portions of the meteorite are curated at the American Museum of Natural History and teams will continue mineralogical and isotopic studies to refine the parent‑body history and the role of asteroid salinization in prebiotic chemistry.