Meteorites are not just rocks containing ordinary minerals. Astronomers who studied fragments of a meteorite that landed in a New Jersey home in July 2024 found that it contained primitive material known as CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite. They also found that, before breaking off from its parent asteroid, the meteorite had been exposed to “concentrated salty fluids,” or brine, CBS News reported.

The high salt concentration in brine can “create molecules crucial to life on Earth, and meteorites may have brought organic materials to the Earth that later resulted in organic life,” the researchers said, according to CBS News.

Meanwhile, a new astronomical study revealed that erythrulose has been detected near the center of the Milky Way, within a molecular cloud between star systems, Space.com reported.

The compound, a type of sugar also found in raspberries, suggests that other sugars, such as ribose — a key component of RNA — and other molecules essential to the origin of life may also exist in space, according to Carlos Briones, co-author of the study published July 13 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Like the brine found in the meteorite, erythrulose could provide clues to the origins of life because it can transform into the building blocks of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, the study said.

If sugars such as erythrulose are indeed present in massive molecular clouds of dust and gas, they could eventually become incorporated into asteroids, comets or other small celestial bodies that may later collide with planets, potentially helping spark the emergence of life, the study added.