Nasa probes as man claims mysterious space object hit his house
Technology
An object believed to be from the International Space Station (ISS) has fallen from the sky
(Web Desk) - Florida, US, resident Alejandro Otero says the cylindrical object crashed two-floors deep into his house and almost hit his son.
The chunk of debris is thought to be from the massive EP-9 equipment pallet that was jettisoned from the ISS for an uncontrolled landing over Earth in early March.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who roughly tracked the reentry of the debris, initially said the EP-9 equipment pallet reentered on March 8 at 7:29pm UTC over the Gulf of Mexico between Cancun and Cuba.
"This was within the previous prediction window but a little to the northeast of the 'most likely' part of the path," McDowell wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
"A couple minutes later reentry and it would have reached Ft Myers."
However, Otero claims the estimations were wrong, having captured the sound of the crash on his Google Nest security cameras.
"Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples," Otero wrote in a tweet to McDowell.
"Tore through the roof and went through two floors. Almost hit my son."
After analysing the claims, McDowell agreed that the timings match up and that it may be "a bit from the reentry of the EP-9 battery pallet."
The EP-9 equipment pallet, about the size of an SUV, is the largest object to have ever been thrown out from the ISS.
Launched to the ISS in May 2020, the pallet was used to replace old batteries with new lithium-ion batteries for the station's solar energy storage.
Experts, including McDowell, agree more needs to be done to ensure payload reentering Earth's atmosphere is not a risk to people and property on the ground.
Many say it's only a matter of time before there is a casualty.
Otero is now waiting from confirmation from Nasa.
