Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey Home

Posted by spzx 1 day ago

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Comments

Comment by xnx 1 day ago

Comment by fuzzfactor 1 day ago

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

Comment by ButlerianJihad 1 day ago

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.

Comment by lelanthran 1 day ago

> 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.

Comment by ozim 1 day ago

I see a parody of preppers in there.

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

Comment by ASalazarMX 18 hours ago

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.

Comment by lt_kernelpanic 3 hours ago

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

Comment by andrewflnr 17 hours ago

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.

Comment by tsoukase 21 hours ago

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.

Comment by duxup 1 day ago

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

Comment by alex1138 1 day ago

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Comment by alex1138 1 day ago

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Comment by scrollop 1 day ago

"Dumb" is correct.

Hacknews is like an organism, and you have been subject to the immune system.

Comment by floren 1 day ago

Next time, try a clever joke.

Comment by Cider9986 1 day ago

Indeed

Comment by jimnotgym 1 day ago

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

Who should one contact if this happens?

Comment by gexla 5 hours ago

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...

Comment by crooked-v 1 day ago

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.

Comment by herodoturtle 1 day ago

> 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.

Comment by pavel_lishin 23 hours ago

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.

Comment by jlarocco 1 day ago

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

Comment by jjmarr 1 day ago

Is this actually true? Could it depend on latitude?

Comment by recursivecaveat 13 hours ago

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...

Comment by herodoturtle 1 day ago

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.

Comment by ck2 1 day ago

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

Comment by qup 1 day ago

And milk crates

"National dairy. All other use prohibited!"

Comment by cucumber3732842 10 hours ago

And USPS bins.

Comment by fuzzfactor 1 day ago

>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 :)

Comment by hammock 1 day ago

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

Comment by lagrange77 1 day ago

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.

Comment by reactordev 1 day ago

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

Comment by sph 1 day ago

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.

Comment by spiderfarmer 1 day ago

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.

Comment by lagrange77 1 day ago

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

Comment by spiderfarmer 1 day ago

I did. It’s depressingly realistic.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by Razengan 1 day ago

The Vogon hyperspace development council.

Comment by decimalenough 1 day ago

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

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Comment by vee-kay 1 day ago

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Comment by fractallyte 1 day ago

"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...

Comment by defrost 1 day ago

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...

Comment by imoverclocked 1 day ago

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.

Comment by defrost 1 day ago

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.

Comment by anovikov 1 day ago

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.

Comment by onion2k 1 day ago

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.

Comment by anovikov 1 day ago

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.

Comment by lazide 1 day ago

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!

Comment by anovikov 1 day ago

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.

Comment by lazide 1 day ago

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.

Comment by anovikov 1 day ago

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

Comment by protocolture 14 hours ago

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

Comment by accountrequired 1 day ago

its like we can explore the universe from our living room

Comment by amelius 1 day ago

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

Comment by andrewstuart 1 day ago

Scene one of a Steven Spielberg movie.

Comment by dylan604 1 day ago

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

Comment by fractallyte 1 day ago

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!

Comment by scrollop 1 day ago

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

Comment by ur-whale 1 day ago

> 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?

Comment by gus_massa 1 day ago

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.

Comment by chrisjj 1 day ago

> Only one was recovered because it hit a house.

You lost me there.

Is recovery possible only if a house is hit??

Comment by alt219 1 day ago

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.

Comment by xingped 1 day ago

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.

Comment by chrisjj 1 day ago

Not tiny. This is specifically about the largest.

Comment by stronglikedan 1 day ago

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

Comment by chrisjj 1 day ago

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

Comment by thisisauserid 1 day ago

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Comment by fllkfsalkdsfds 1 day ago

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Comment by pcrh 1 day ago

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...

Comment by Enginerrrd 1 day ago

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.

Comment by msdz 1 day ago

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?

Comment by klez 1 day ago

No, ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE!

Comment by lysace 1 day ago

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