Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home | Hacker News Reader

Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

seti.org

182 pointsspzx67 comments

The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual:

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

I can think of many diverse reactions to a meteor strike, but even NASA is singing the praises of this guy and his quick thinking.

> The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual:

Maybe chunks hit many people, but you only hear about the ones who are prepped and ready.

I see a parody of preppers in there.

„Your bug out backpack is not enough, you need space bug out backpack”.

I've seen enough sci-fi to know I shouldn't just grab the dang thing ...

With the covered surface by a prepared observer being so small and the place of impact being independent and identically distributed over all earth, we can declare such an event a one in billion one.

I think I have a pair of disposable gloves somewhere, and maybe could manage to get several glass jars, but I have no idea what the aluminium foil is for, or how to preserve the samples with it.

If this had happened to me, I would probably use Ziplock bags in the best scenario.

I'm told aluminum foil is pretty close to intrinsically sterile, at least fresh. The process of forming it kills all life and it's not hospitable to new colonizers.

The aluminium foil forms a Faraday cage that prevents the tiny meteorite aliens from calling home for rescue.

Source paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea2105

Oh, I wanted to subscribe to "Alien World Chemistry".

"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... The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."

I don't doubt it, but that's an astounding trajectory estimation...

Desert Fireball Network, and less public precursor projects have been doing this for a while now:

* https://dfn.gfo.rocks/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fireball_Network

* https://pawsey.org.au/researchers/desert-fireball-network-te...

From the wikipedia link:

> The dark flight trajectory of a meteoroid is significantly affected by the atmospheric winds, especially by the jet stream. As a result, the meteorite fall position can be shifted by up to several kilometers compared to a scenario with no winds.

That network is mostly interested in where it falls, not where it came from. A few degrees for finding an origin is a huge variation.

Planetary scientists are motivated to physically examine freshly fallen near pristine samples, yes. They are also keenly interested in origins, intra or extra solar system, relationships to known showers et al.

The less public precursors were and still have an interest in both projected targets and sources.

This is absolutely trivial as long as any fixed ground objects are visible in a camera and does not at all require some sub-pixel precision.

It's trivial to draw a line between some fixed points and extrapolate back to an origin if there's no external forces acting on the asteroid. But there is - planetary gravity, the moon, potentially the sun heating one side of it, atmospheric wind, weather, etc make a big difference. That makes it harder.

That's basics of meteor observation. As long as camera didn't move, you can plot the track against the stars and time is known. Then with two tracks from different locations, orbit is determined.

Also, a typical consumer camera is going to struggle (even with the best analysis!) to have visual accuracy within even a few degrees of true (due to everything from high compression ratios in post processing to shitty optical properties in the actual camera) and that makes a probability cone that is pretty large.

Still better than nothing, though!

building a WCS model (pixel XY <-> ray vectors) of a camera is a solved science. Of course you can never expect it to be rectangular.

No kidding, that is what I was referring too. Precision for a typical doorbell camera is going to be several minutes of angle at best, which is my point.

Oh well several arcminutes is excellent. Yes this is best case.

Did someone pay him for the rare meteorite? At least enough to fix the roof?

Who should one contact if this happens?

The Vogon hyperspace development council.

Now you just need to find their contact details. Beware the Leopard!

In the US, if a meteorite lands on your property, it's yours and you can sell or donate it as you please. This homeowner probably made a decent amount on the sale, especially with the emphasis on immediate preservation.

> In the US, if a meteorite lands on your property, it's yours and you can sell or donate it as you please.

Does this happen often in the US?

I mean often enough that folks happen to know the legality of it?

In which case I find it extremely frightening that one could be sitting on their porch, minding their own business, browsing HN, and then get unexpectedly head-shotted by a meteorite.

It happens at the same probability as anywhere else on earth.

Apologies for the ambiguity, I was referring to the selling or donating of meteorites - and only because I've never heard of such a thing in my part of the world.

Is this actually true? Could it depend on latitude?

Apparently they are thought to be more common closer to the equator, due to the plane of the solar system (and hence the asteroid belt) lining up with it: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/meteorites-might-be-more...

According to this article, we know of three people who have been hit by meteorites, all non-fatally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylacauga_(meteorite)

Not sure if we should count Tunguska, which killed at least three people.

Everybody knows that. You contact NASA. Then a black helicopter will pick you up, bring you to an airbase and fly you straight to the white house, where you will be introduced to the actual truth, while a team of very excited scientists with biohazard suits praise and examine the artefact. If you're still sceptical, they will take you to a large hidden hangar in the middle of the desert and show you around.

Can’t take any US action movie seriously anymore. Not because of plotlines like this, but because they portray the team at the white house as somewhat capable.

You have to suspend your disbelief harder at the 8 o’clock news nowadays.

Watch Don't look up, if you haven't yet, it's brilliant.

I did. It’s depressingly realistic.

You forgot the part where Brent Spiner shows up and tells you they have one and asks if you want to meet it.

I guess I'm not be reading the same type of science fiction.

You contact NASA because you found a meteorite with clear signs of alien life, a black helicopter will pick you up, you get put in a dark cell, interrogated, and then told to forget all about it or G-Men will disappear your family. You try to sell the news to mass media, but rumours start to spread about you. Your life work get discredited, you lose your job and family, end up wandering the streets in an alcohol daze muttering about aliens.

I guess it depends if you've drank the kool aid about the US government being the good guys, or not.

someone recently SOLD a t-rex skeleton for $50 MILLION (61% complete)

so you should be able to sell meteorites that land on your property

only thing you can't own/sell is NASA Moon Rocks

>Who should one contact if this happens?

If you ever watched Hardcore Pawn it looks like they would buy just about anything for the right price :)

And milk crates

"National dairy. All other use prohibited!"

And USPS bins.

What if it’s moon rock from a meteorite? How would they know?

Here's another article that explains the guy called in an expert who told him "at least $100K crashed through your roof."

Doesn't mention if he actually sold it though, unless I missed it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/science/meteorite-new-jer...

How did the Alien World Chemistry get from the New Jersey Home into the Meteorite.

> Researchers found preserved bits from near the surface of the original asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids

Are we sure the guy who picked it up didn't just wash it with some sort of detergent after it cooled off?

No, many of the the molecules are too unusual. More details:

The amino acids have a central C (Carbon) that is connected to 4 parts, a COOH (acid), a NH2 (amino) and H (Hydrogen) and a R (rest, that is a polite way to say whatever). [I'm ignoring some less usual cases.]

The 4 parts can be arengad in two ways, "L" and "D" that are mirrors of each other. Living things (and corpses) almost have only the "L" version. But in the meteorite they found a 50% and 50% mix of L and D that is a clear thing that they were made by chemical reactions instead of living thing.

Also, in living things (and corpses) the possible/usual R are like 30. The meteorite has a few of the usual ones, and also a few unusual ones that is another clear thing that they were made by chemical reactions instead of living thing.

Also, the R they found can be explained by the expected chemical reactions on a meteorite. I don't understand the details, but IIUC there is HCN (Cyanide) and in some conditions it likes to react with itself and make the stuff they found.

So unless the guy is a mad scientist making weird experiments in his attic that are not very useful to rule the word, it's probably a mix made in the meteorite by chemical reactions.

https://ohyeahihadntthoughtofthat.com/

its like we can explore the universe from our living room

It's like doorstep delivery, but faster and better.

Scene one of a Steven Spielberg movie.

Color Out of Space (2019) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5073642/)

Evolution (2001) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251075/)

Both fun movies, in completely different ways!

If you follow disclosure, scene 1 occured a long, long time ago...

You'll know it's a Spielberg movie if there was a shot of clouds preceding the meteorite shot first.

> Only one was recovered because it hit a house.

You lost me there.

Is recovery possible only if a house is hit??

From what I understand about this story, the homeowner had the presence of mind to immediately attempt to preserve the meteorite, which is what made subsequent analysis possible.

Presumably other fragments landing outdoors with no one around taking similar steps to preserve them, even if they were to be recovered, would not be as valuable for study because of their exposure to the natural environment of Earth.

No? It's obvious the meaning is that most meteorites will never be found because they're tiny and no one witnesses where they land. If it hits a house you know where it landed.

Not tiny. This is specifically about the largest.

The point stands regardless of size: it's not likely to be noticed unless it hits something that someone would pay attention to.

And that need not be just a house, I'd say.

Browsing that site, The SETI Institute appears to have expanded beyond its original goal of finding extraterrestrial intelligence into astrobiology and more. Perhaps the first attempts at detecting alien radio signals hoped too much?

I have little doubt that, given the infinite size of the universe, that extraterrestrial intelligence (of some sort) exists, the question is whether we will ever detect it... It perhaps even exists as close to us as Europa, should we attempt a landing there...

No, ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE!

There's a flyby in 2030, but no landing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper

The landing plan was scrapped last year. :/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Lander

Detecting radio signals never made much sense to me.

Even a few light years away, it’s almost infeasible to build a radio transmitter that could be detected above the noise floor. The amount of energy you’d need would be absurdly wasteful.

Wasteful by whose standards?

If you’re an alien civilization with several dyson spheres, surely at some point you’d have sufficient energy/resources even for such a “hopeless” science-y project, right?

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