NASA confirms space station debris hit Florida man's home

Washington: An object that crashed from the sky into an American man s home was a hunk of debris ejected from the International Space Station, NASA co...

Washington: An object that crashed from the sky into an American man's home was a hunk of debris ejected from the International Space Station, NASA confirmed on Monday.

The strange tale came to light last month when Alejandro Otero of Naples, Florida posted on X that a metallic item "tore through the roof and went (through) 2 floors" of his house, almost striking his son, on March 8.

It occurred at a time and location that closely matched official predictions for the atmospheric burn-up of a cargo pallet fragment carrying old batteries that was jettisoned from the orbital outpost in 2021, making it a likely match, according to space watchers.

NASA, which subsequently collected the object from Otero for analysis, confirmed in a new blog post that the predictions were true.

"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," it said.