When a meteor streaked across the sky near New York City on July 16, 2024, generating a sonic boom that rattled windows, few witnesses realized what was about to happen next. A rock the size of a heavy airline bag had slammed into Earth's atmosphere at 32,000 miles per hour—and part of it would soon land in someone's bedroom.
That fragment, weighing just over 2 pounds, crashed straight through the roof of a house in Hillsborough, New Jersey. The homeowner heard a loud crash, found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom, smelled something sulfur-like, and discovered black fragments scattered across the bed and carpet.
What makes this discovery extraordinary is not just the dramatic arrival, but what scientists found inside the space rock. An international team of researchers, writing in the journal Science Advances, determined the meteorite belongs to a rare class called CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrites—primitive meteorites altered by salty, liquid water from their parent asteroid.
"These are the most pristine CM1/2 meteorites we know of," said lead author Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer at the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center. He credits the homeowner's quick thinking: the person immediately preserved the fragments using disposable gloves and aluminum foil, placing them in glass jars.
Carbonaceous chondrites are some of the oldest materials in our solar system, dating back over 4.5 billion years. The CM1/2 classification is particularly special. Hillsborough is only the second witnessed fall of this type ever recorded, following a meteorite that landed in Indonesia in 2020. All other known falls of this class are slightly different CM2 types.
The scientists discovered tiny salt-rich fragments within the meteorite, suggesting they came from near the surface of its parent asteroid—where liquid water once evaporated, leaving behind concentrated salts. This process had never been documented in this type of rocky world before.
The findings connect to bigger mysteries. Spacecraft have recently returned similar materials from two asteroids: Japan's Hayabusa2 mission brought back samples from Ryugu, and NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission delivered pieces of Bennu. Both contained signs of ancient briny fluids. Now, the Hillsborough meteorite offers scientists on Earth another chance to study these rare, water-altered space materials—thanks to a New Jersey homeowner who kept a cool head when a piece of the solar system crashed through their ceiling.