Mystery object that crashed onto Florida home came from space station, Nasa confirms

A mystery object that crashed onto a Florida home last month was from the International Space Station, Nasa has confirmed.

The object, weighing about 0.7kg (1.6lbs) and 10cm (4in) tall, was part of equipment from the space station that tore through a home in Naples on 8 March.

It had ripped through the house’s ceiling and torn up the flooring.

The home’s owner Alejandro Otero told local television at the time that he was on holiday when his son told him what had happened at the house.

“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage. I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt,” Mr Otero told The Associated Press.

The object was then taken to the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral for further analysis.

Nasa confirmed on Monday that the object was part of metal support of a cargo pallet packed with over 2,600kg (5,800lbs) of aging batteries, which was released from the space station in 2021.

The space agency planned to release aging nickel hydride batteries from the space station after the delivery and installation of new lithium-ion batteries as part of power upgrades on the orbital outpost.

While the discarded chunk of space junk, made of metal alloy Inconel, was expected to burn up on entry into Earth’s atmosphere, a piece of it survived and crashed onto the Florida home, the space agency noted.

“Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the Nasa flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet,” the agency’s officials said.

“The International Space Station will perform a detailed investigation of the jettison and re-entry analysis to determine the cause of the debris survival and to update modeling and analysis, as needed,” Nasa said.

Nasa researchers model how objects heat up and break apart during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

These models are regularly updated when agency officials find debris that survives re-entry to the ground.