TThe risk of being injured by falling space debris is reportedly “less than 1 in 100 billion,” according to the European Space Agency (ESA), but for one family in Naples, it came very close after a piece of debris from the International Space Station (ISS) went through their roof last month.
“I was shaking. I was in complete disbelief. What are the chances of something falling on my house with so much force and causing so much damage,” Alejandro Otero, who lived in the house with the rest of his family, told Southwest Florida TV channel. BLINK. “I’m just thankful no one was hurt.”
NASA confirmed on Monday, after analyzing space debris in cooperation with the family, that what was initially a mysterious object was in fact a piece of Inconel metal alloy that should have disintegrated upon entering Earth’s atmosphere on March 8. The shaped object – which was 10cm high, 1.6cm wide and weighed 1.6kg – was part of a cargo pallet of old nickel hydride batteries that the ISS launched in 2021.
The total mass of the hardware released was about 2.6 tons (about the same as a African forest elephant), and according to NASA, “experts use engineering models to estimate how objects heat up and break apart during atmospheric reentry.” Following the unintended survival of what NASA said was a pallet pillar, the ISS will now conduct an investigation and update its modeling and analysis.
Space debris from low Earth orbit has been a problem since the launch of the first satellite in 1957. Since then, at least 36,500 objects larger than 10 cm have been detected. were recorded, one million between 1 cm. and 10 cm, and 130 million less than 1 cm, according to ESA data. And while the risk of these falling and injuring people on Earth remains low, collisions in orbit – threatening satellites and other space technologies –are increasing as the amount of space debris continues to accumulate.
See more information: Falling space debris is a bigger threat than ever
“NASA,” the agency said Monday, “remains committed to operating responsibly in low Earth orbit and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space equipment needs to be released.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
