On March 8th, 2024, a piece of space junk fell from space and crashed into a Naples, Florida home. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
According to NASA, back in March of 2021, a cargo pallet that contained aging nickel hydride batteries from the International Space Station (ISS) was released into space after new batteries were delivered and installed.
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It Should Have Burned Up When It Hit Earth’s Atmosphere
The hardware, all 5,800lbs of it, was supposed to burn up when entering Earth’s atmosphere. However, a 1.6lb piece made it through and landed on Alejandro Otero’s home and almost hit his son.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell announced on Twitter/X that the EP-9 equipment pallet had re-entered the atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico between Cancun and Cuba. He stated, “A couple minutes later, reentry and it would have reached Ft Myers.”
This was when Alejandro responded to the post to say that a piece of space junk appeared to have landed on his home. He was away from home when it happened, and his 19-year-old son called him as soon as it happened.
They Thought the Object That Fell From Space Was a Meteorite
"Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling," Alejandro told WINK News. "When we heard that, we were like, impossible, and then immediately I thought a meteorite."
When you think of something that fell from space, you probably think about a meteorite, too. You don’t tend to think it would be something man-made. But that is precisely what it was.
Alejandro shared photos of the object and what his Nest camera captured from the incident in the Twitter/X thread.
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To think that something fell from space and hit your house, nearly missing your son, has got to be terrifying. Thank be to God that it did not injure anyone as it easily could have. However, according to NPR, the pallet caused over $15,000 in repairs to Alejandro’s home.
“We can’t help but think about what could have happened if it came through just a little to the right or to the left, how much more disastrous the situation could have been,” Alejandro told NPR. “We feel very lucky and blessed that everyone was OK.”
The Incident Is Not a Common One
NASA collected and analyzed the item at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. According to a blog post by NASA, “Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter.” ISS will also be doing an investigation.
NASA ends the post with, “NASA remains committed to responsibly operating in low Earth orbit, and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space hardware must be released.”
Crew Dragon Resilience watched as @NASA ground controllers released a pallet that will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. pic.twitter.com/pgQCx1ocSJ
- Mike Hopkins (@Astro_illini) March 11, 2021
Luckily, this incident is not a common one. According to Mark Sundahl, who has worked in space law for more than 20 years, there are a lot of cases of debris falling to Earth without burning up all the way. However, they usually fall into the ocean.
Hopefully, that can give us peace of mind that this isn’t an everyday occurrence. And I am sure it will be quite the story to tell for years to come in Alejandro’s family.
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h/t: People
Featured Image Credit: Twitter X /@Astro_illini