NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — NASA confirmed Monday that a mysterious object that fell on the roof from a Florida home last month was a piece of space junk from discarded equipment on the International Space Station.
The cylindrical object that ripped through the Naples house on March 8 was later taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis.
The space agency said it was a metal bracket Used to mount old batteries onto a cargo pallet for disposal. The pallet was jettisoned from the space station in 2021, and the cargo was expected to eventually burn up entirely upon entering Earth’s atmosphere, but one piece survived.
The piece of metal weighed 1.6 pounds (0.7 kg) and was 4 inches tall and about 4 inches wide.
Owner Alejandro Otero counted television station WINK at the time he was on vacation when his son told him what had happened. Otero arrived early to check the house, discovering that the object had torn through the ceiling and destroyed the floor.
“I was shaking. I was in complete disbelief. What are the odds of something falling on my house with that much force and causing that much damage,” Otero said. “I’m just so thankful that no one got hurt.”
