NASA is currently investigating a piece of debris that plummeted from space into the home of a man in Florida, which might be linked to the International Space Station. Alejandro Otero from Naples, Florida, shared on X that the object “tore through the roof and went (through) 2 floors” of his residence, narrowly missing his son, on the afternoon of March 8.
Otero suspects the debris to be from a cargo pallet loaded with old batteries that were discharged from the space station in 2021 by NASA’s ground control. According to the expected timeline, this debris was supposed to disintegrate over the Earth’s atmosphere on March 8. Otero also uploaded footage from his Nest video camera at home, capturing the noise of the object as it smashed through his roof at 2:34 pm.
“This is at 1934 UTC, which matches closely with the Space Force’s prediction of reentry over the Gulf at 1929 UTC,” remarked astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, suggesting the debris could indeed be from the EP-9 battery pallet’s reentry.
NASA stated to AFP on Tuesday, “NASA collected an item in cooperation with the homeowner, and will analyze the object at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as possible to determine its origin,” adding that “More information will be available once the analysis is complete.” According to a report from Ars Technica, while NASA owned the batteries, they were part of a pallet structure launched by Japan’s space agency, which could potentially complicate any liability claims.
There have been other instances of human-made space debris landing on Earth, such as a piece of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule descending onto an Australian sheep farm in 2022, and parts of the Skylab space station crashing in Western Australia. In recent developments, NASA has criticized China for its Long March rockets’ uncontrolled reentries to Earth after their missions in orbit.
