Mystery solved! The origin of the space object that hit a house in Florida was discovered

After careful analysis of the piece, NASA confirmed where the object that destroyed the roof of a home in the United States came from.

NASA
The cylindrical object that fell on a home in Florida.

The cylindrical object that violently impacted a home in Miami, Florida, on 8 March was a metal support that was used on the International Space Station (ISS). This was confirmed by NASA, after carrying out expert reports on the strange piece.

The object, barely 10 cm high by 4 cm wide, fell on a home in Naples, Florida. Although its size is similar to the palm of a hand, the impact pierced the roof and two floors of the house, and by a few meters it did not hurt the child who was in one of the rooms.

NASA
The object pierced the roof and two floors of a home in Naples, Florida.

“It caused a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son, who was two rooms away from the impact and heard everything,” said Alejandro Otero, the owner of the home, who reported the event immediately. NASA collected the object and analysed it at the Kennedy Space Center to determine its origin. From the first moment, the strongest hypothesis was that it came from the ISS. Now NASA confirmed it.

This is a fragment of a battery holder that was released in March 2021, after an upgrade of the power sources at the Station. “The debris was a NASA flight support equipment strut used to hold the batteries on the charging pad. The object is made of Inconel metal alloy, weighs 7.2 kilos, measures 10 cm in height and 4 cm in diameter,” the Agency explained in a statement.

"(The remains) were expected to burn up completely during entry into Earth's atmosphere on 8 March, 2024. However, a piece of hardware survived re-entry and impacted a home in Naples, Florida," they added from The NASA.

How likely is it that space debris will fall?

According to estimates, there are about a million objects orbiting our planet, like a large metal network. There are large disused satellites, but there are also remains of rockets and collisions between objects, which measure just a few centimetres.

In total, there are about 8 thousand tonnes of what is called space debris. All the artefacts that humans send into Earth's orbit will sooner or later re-enter the atmosphere. This happens because the gravitational force of the Earth little by little brings them closer. The vast majority of these objects disintegrate when passing through the atmosphere, due to friction. But some, as in this case, manage to survive re-entry and reach the surface.

Space agencies use models to evaluate the response of materials to re-entry into the atmosphere, and ensure their disintegration or, if applicable, calculate precisely where debris could fall.

In this case, NASA will analyse why the object managed to survive. “NASA specialists use engineering models to estimate how objects heat up and break up during re-entry into the atmosphere. These models require detailed input parameters and are periodically updated when debris is found to have survived atmospheric re-entry to the ground,” explains NASA.

However, there are other plans. There are projects to go out to collect space debris and remove it from Earth's orbit, or ensure its destruction upon re-entry into the atmosphere. Such is the case, for example, of the ClearSpace-1 mission, of the European Space Agency, which in 2025 will test new technologies for capturing disused satellites, ensuring “destructive entry”, and charting the path for a sustainable space exploration.