NJ meteorite crash mirrors event that started life on Earth: Scientist
(NewsNation) — meteorite The crash in New Jersey two years ago may shed light on how life emerged on Earth billions of years ago, according to a SETI Institute researcher.
Space fragments piercing the roof of a house on July 16, 2024 contains compounds, minerals and amino acids; components that can give rise to organisms under the right conditions.
In fact, the latest event likely reflects an earlier encounter with organic matter from space, when Earth was a “dry place,” said SETI Institute Senior Researcher. Peter Jenniskens said “Jesse Weber Live” on Wednesday.
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“We think Earth was a nice enough place for life to start. But it needed compounds to get started. It needed a start,” he said. “This meteorite gave us an idea of how this might happen.”
Jenniskens praised the homeowners in New Jersey for collecting pieces of the Hillsborough meteorite and preserving their integrity for scientific research.
“We can actually see that these rocks contain small pieces of material from the original surface of the earth from which they came,” he said.
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