Piece of Space Junk Crashes Through Roof in Florida

A piece of debris discarded three years ago by the International Space Station (ISS) crashed through the roof of a home in Florida in March, footage shows.

Video filmed by Alejandro Otero shows Otero retrieving the object from a fresh hole in the floor of his home, which was created when the object crashed through the house on March 8, also leaving a “big hole on the ceiling” and roof. At the end of the video, footage shows the loud sound the object made as it crashed through Otero’s home. Otero told a local news outlet that he was glad no one got hurt.

NASA released a statement about the object on Monday, April 15, saying it was part of a 5,800-pound cargo pallet containing aging nickel hydride batteries. The material, which was discarded in March 2021, was expected to fully burn up when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA said that the ISS will perform a detailed investigation to determine why the debris survived re-entry. Credit: Alejandro Otero via Storyful

Video transcript

- Are you kidding me?

- See, now, unlike you, I would have reached in and went ahhhh!

[LAUGHTER]

- Oh, wow. Feel that thing.

- That's definitely man-made.

- Yeah. 100%.

- But it's solid.

- The charring on it.

- Yeah.

- The heat.

- Burnt it through.

- It doesn't look like a battery or anything, so we're good there.

- You're done with this one?

- Oh, yeah. Shining in there. Is it hollow? Is it hollow though?

- Sort of, yeah.

- But it's burnt? Oh, yeah, and it has something inside of it.

- Oh, yeah. right.