The mysterious object that suddenly flew in and crashed through the roof of a private house may have been 'garbage dumped by the International Space Station'



On March 8, 2024, a mysterious object crashed into a house in Florida, USA, and broke through the roof. The cylindrical object, weighing about 2 pounds (about 900 g), was reportedly likely to have been space debris that had been discarded by

the International Space Station (ISS) and re-entered the atmosphere.

Mysterious object that crashed through Florida home was likely space junk from the International Space Station | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/mysterious-object-that-crashed-through-florida-home-was-likely-space-junk-from-the-international-space-station



Metal thought to be International Space Station trash rips through Florida home | International Space Station | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/02/space-trash-florida-home

Trash from the International Space Station may have hit a house in Florida | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/trash-from-the-international-space-station-may-have-hit-a-house-in-florida/

At around 2:30 p.m. local time on March 8, 2024, a mysterious object crashed into the home of Alejandro Otero, a Florida resident.



Here is a photo of the object that crashed into Otero's house. It is a cylinder of about 10 cm and weighs about 900 g.



The object appears to have fallen with considerable force, piercing the roof of the house.



It also broke through the ceiling.



The object was removed through a hole in the floor. Fortunately, no one was injured, but Otero's son was two rooms away, and if he had been unlucky, the object could have hit him directly.



The object that crashed at Otero's home is likely part of a battery pallet that the ISS discarded in 2021 .

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , reported in March 2024 that the EP-9 battery pallet that the ISS discarded in 2021 will re-enter Earth between 12:30 on March 8 and 8:30 on March 9, 2024, and that about half a ton of debris is likely to fall without burning up in the atmosphere.



This battery pallet was loaded onto the HTV (HTV: Kounotori), a space station resupply vehicle launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2020. The HTV repeatedly carried new batteries to the ISS, transferred old batteries onto cargo pallets and re-entered the atmosphere, but due to delays in the work, the last cargo pallet was left behind on the ISS.

Therefore, NASA decided to use the ISS's robotic arm to dispose of the remaining batteries and cargo pallets outside the space station in March 2021. Below is a photo of the cargo pallets being disposed of. The total weight of the pallets was about 2.6 tons, and the size was about twice that of a typical refrigerator.



On March 8, when the pallet re-entered Earth, NASA said, 'We have conducted a thorough debris analysis of the pallet and determined that it is harmless upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.' However, other space experts and the European Space Agency (ESA) have pointed out that some of the pallet may not burn up and may fall.

NASA spokesman Josh Finch told Ars Technica that NASA has retrieved the debris from Otero. 'We will analyze this object as soon as possible to determine its origin. More information will be available once the analysis is complete,' Finch said.

Otero said he will seek compensation for damages to his home from the responsible agencies, but this could be complicated by the fact that the battery pallet was dumped by the ISS, but the pallet itself was launched by JAXA. According to the Space Liability Convention , which stipulates liability for damage caused by objects launched into space, the launching country is responsible for damage caused by a space object, but it is unclear how an object once inside a spacecraft will be handled once it is disposed of.

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in Science, Posted by log1h_ik