The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed Monday that the object that crashed through a Florida home was indeed space debris, ABC News reported.
NASA has announced that the space debris that crashed a Florida home in March was a space debris originating from the International Space Station (ISS), according to ABC News. The incident, which involved a cylindrical piece of metal, has since been under thorough investigation by space experts.
The object, identified as a metal support previously used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet, was part of the station’s waste disposal routine, ABC reported. This pallet was jettisoned back in 2021, and while the load was expected to disintegrate upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, this particular piece survived.
NASA confirms mystery object that crashed through roof of Florida home came from space station https://t.co/ZDmQprzOvs
— CTV News (@CTVNews) April 15, 2024
NASA transported the metallic chunk to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis while continuing to study the path and effects of space debris, according to ABC News.
It was previously reported that an object weighing approximately 1.6 pounds and measuring 4 inches in height by about 1.5 inches in width tore through the roof of Alejandro Otero’s residence. Otero, who was vacationing at the time, rushed back upon receiving an update from his son about the unexpected visitor that had not only breached the ceiling but also damaged the flooring beneath. (RELATED: Plane Crashes Into Florida Mobile Home Park Sparking Several Fires And Fatalities, Authorities Say)
“It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all,” Otero told WINK. “Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling. When we heard that, we were like, impossible, and then immediately I thought a meteorite.”