Nasa is analysing a piece of space debris that smashed through a Florida man’s roof, narrowly missing his son.
Alejandro Otero of Naples, Florida, said the item “tore through the roof and went [through] two floors” of his house, almost striking his son, on March 8.
Having recovered the small object, he believes it was a piece of a cargo pallet containing old batteries that Nasa ground control teams released from the orbital outpost in 2021.
It was supposed to burn up harmlessly over the Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, according to official projections.
Mr Otero also posted on X, formerly Twitter, a clip from his home Nest video camera where he said the sound of it crashing through his roof could be heard at 2.34 pm.
“So that’s 1934 UTC, which is very consistent with the Space Force estimate of reentry over the Gulf at 1929 UTC,” wrote noted astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, in response. “I think you may be right and it’s a bit from the reentry of the EP-9 battery pallet.”
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