Mystery solved! The origin of the space object that crashed into a house in Florida has been discovered

The cylindrical object that crashed violently into a house in Miami, Florida, on March 8, it was a metal support used on the International Space Station (ISS). The fact was confirmed by NASA, after carrying out expertise on the strange piece.

The object, just 10 cm high and 4 cm wide, fell onto a house 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 he did not hurt the child who was in one of the rooms.

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

It is a fragment of a battery holder that was freed in March 2021, following an upgrade of the power sources at the Station. “The debris was a NASA flight support equipment support, used to hold the batteries in the charging base. The object is made of Inconel metal alloy, weighs 7.2 kilograms, measures 10 cm in height and 4 cm in diameter “, explained the Agency in a statement.

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

What is the probability of falling space debris?

According to estimates, there are about a million objects in orbit around our planet, like a large metal mesh. There are large satellites that are no longer in use, but there are also remains of rockets and collisions between objects measuring just a few centimeters.

In total, there are around 8 thousand tons of so-called space junk. All artifacts that humans send into Earth’s orbit will, sooner or later, re-enter the atmosphere. This happens because the Earth’s gravitational force brings them closer little by little. A The vast majority of these objects disintegrate as they pass 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 reaction of materials to re-entry into the atmosphere and ensure their disintegration or, where appropriate, calculate precisely where the debris may fall.

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

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