NASA confirmed Monday that the mysterious object that pierced the roof of a Florida home last month was a piece of equipment thrown from the International Space Station.
The cylindrical object, which fell on a house in Naples on March 8, was later sent to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral for analysis.
The space agency said it was a metal bracket used to hold the charging pad in place to remove old batteries. The platform was ejected from the space station in 2021, and its cargo was expected to burn up as it entered Earth's atmosphere, but part of the mission survived.
The piece of metal weighs 700 grams (1.6 pounds), is 10 centimeters (4 inches) high and 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) wide.
Alejandro Otero, the home's owner, told WINK television at the time that he was on vacation and his son told him what happened. Otero returned to his home to check on it and realized the object had pierced the ceiling and destroyed the floor.
“I was shaking. I couldn't believe it. What was the possibility of something coming down on my house with that much force and doing that much damage,” Otero said. “I'm just so thankful no one was hurt.”
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