Space junk from the ISS fell on a house in Florida

Alejandro Otero, the owner of a house in Florida (USA), said an object that looked like a piece of debris from a spacecraft crashed into his roof and penetrated two floors. Fortunately, there were no casualties in the incident. Otero contacted NASA, which is now investigating the matter.

Some space junk is believed to be from the ISS.

Back in 2021, the ISS released a giant used battery pack weighing 2.9 tons, and it entered the atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago. According to NASA calculations, the battery should have burned completely, but some of its fragments still reached the earth's surface and one of them crashed into Otero's house.

In the photos posted by Otero on social network X on March 15, it is shown that it is an unidentified object. In the posted content, Otero even said that this object even 'almost hit my son'.

Also according to Otero, he tried to send messages and emails to NASA but got no response. He then contacted famous astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. Because the location and time of the incident coincided with the calculated data for the return of the battery pack from the ISS to the atmosphere, McDowell reported this to a NASA representative, after which the remains of the nuclear meteorite were destroyed. Artifacts and debris of Otero's house were collected and sent for analysis.

According to calculations, space debris from the ISS has almost no chance of hitting humans on Earth, but the increasing population density and the increasing amount of space debris leaving orbit could cause Such an incident occurred.

Fortunately, there were no casualties in this case. However, Otero may have to pay a small amount of money to repair his house because the prospect of receiving insurance or compensation from NASA is very vague. In addition, there are currently no legal regulations applicable in this situation.

Samuel Daniel

Update 04 April 2024