NASA confirms origin of space junk that crashed through a house in Florida

NASA has confirmed suspicions that the UFO that crashed into a house in Florida last month actually came from the International Space Station (ISS). The agency analyzed the cylindrical object after it tore off the roof and two floors of a house in Naples on March 8, and concluded that it came from a house. Old battery charging dock Launched from the International Space Station in 2021.

More specifically, NASA revealed in A Monday's blog post The offending object was a support component used to mount the batteries on a 5,800-pound (2,630-kg) pallet launched from the space station. Made of Inconel (a metal alloy that can withstand extreme environments such as high temperatures, pressure, or mechanical loads), the retriever prop weighs 1.6 pounds and measures 4 inches high and 1.6 inches in diameter – slightly smaller than a standard Red Bull can.

It's no surprise that space junk has found its way to Earth — components from rockets launched by SpaceX and (more recently) China National Space Administration For example, it crashes into property, although such debris typically burns up in the atmosphere. NASA said that should have happened in this incident as well, and is now trying to figure out why it didn't.

“The devices were expected to completely burn up as they entered Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024,” NASA said. “The ISS will conduct a detailed investigation analyzing the debris disposal and re-entry process to determine why debris remains and update the modeling and analysis, as needed. These models require detailed input parameters and are updated regularly when debris is shown to have survived atmospheric reentry to Earth.”