NASA has verified that the mysterious object that crashed into a Florida home last month came from the International Space Station (ISS). The agency conducted an analysis of the cylindrical object after it crashed through the roof and two floors of a Naples house on March 8th. The object originated from a cargo pallet of aging batteries released from the ISS in 2021.
“It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all. I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage. I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt,” Otero whose house saw this unknown object falling through their roof.
NASA explained in a blog post on Monday that the object was a support part used for mounting batteries on the 5,800-pound (2,630-kilogram) pallet released from the space station. Made of Inconel, a durable metal alloy, the recovered stanchion weighs 1.6 pounds and measures four inches high by 1.6 inches in diameter, roughly the size of a standard can of Red Bull.
While space debris occasionally returns to Earth, it typically burns up in the atmosphere. NASA anticipated that the object would do the same but is investigating why it didn’t. The ISS will conduct a detailed inquiry into the incident to understand the debris’s survival and improve existing re-entry models based on new data from this event.
