NASA confirmed that a piece of metal that crashed through a Florida home last month was space debris from the International Space Station. The 1.6-pound object was identified as part of a cargo pallet intentionally ejected from the space station three years ago, according to the agency.
Originally intended to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, the pallet filled with old batteries survived and crashed into a house in Naples, Florida, on March 8th, as reported by WINK News. Alejandro Otero, a Naples resident, shared that the metal object narrowly missed hitting his son, who was nearby at the time.
When analyzed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA identified the space junk as part of equipment used to attach batteries to cargo pallets. The cylindrical object measures approximately 4 inches tall and 1.6 inches wide, matching hardware jettisoned from the space station in 2021.
NASA
NASA conducts investigations into such incidents to understand how objects survive atmospheric reentry. The agency uses engineering models to estimate the behavior of debris during entry into the atmosphere and regularly updates these models based on new findings.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
