Space junk breaks through the roof of a house in Florida

The cylindrical object that fell from above, tore off the roof and penetrated two floors at a house in Naples (Florida) on March 8 was brought to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis. The Washington Post reported.

Based on the results, the US agency determined that this was a metal bracket used to attach the battery, coming from NASA's flight support equipment.

The metal block weighs 0.7 kg, is 10 cm high and about 4 cm wide.

The US agency said this container had been taken out of the space station since 2021 and should have been destroyed in the atmosphere. They did not know why this piece of trash appeared and pledged to investigate the cause of the incident. .

Space junk breaks through the roof of a house in Florida Picture 1

NASA also said they will update the relevant mechanical engineering model to avoid a similar situation from occurring.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero told television station WINK that he was on vacation when the strange object fell into his house and was told by his son what happened.

"At that time, I absolutely did not believe that something could fall on my house with such force and cause so much damage," Otero said.

When he returned to check the house, he discovered that the object had torn off the ceiling and two floors.

This is not the first time space junk has fallen to the ground. In 2021 and 2022, debris from SpaceX rockets fell on a farm in Washington state and another farm in Australia.

Skylab, America's first space station, also crashed in Western Australia.

David Pac

Update 17 April 2024