Man nearly hit by possible space junk from International Space Station tore through Florida home

A Florida man was nearly hit by space debris when a small metal object tore the roof off his home.

Alejandro Otero’s son, who has not been named, was relaxing at home on March 8 when a small metal object – which may have come from the International Space Station – crashed into his Naples home.

“It almost hit my son. He was two rooms away and heard everything,” Otero told Wink News. “I was thinking of a meteorite.

“I was shaking. I was in complete disbelief. What are the chances that something would land on my house with that force and cause that much damage,” Otero continued. “I’m very grateful that no one was hurt.”

Surveillance footage from his home captured the sound of the object crashing into his house around 2:30 p.m.

Otero returned early from vacation after his son called to warn him about the object that had crashed into the house.

The two-pound artificial object went through two layers of his house and made a “huge noise”, the father revealed. This left a large hole in the floor and ceiling.

Otero said you can “tell by the shape of the peak that it traveled in that direction through the atmosphere” because of the burn marks that melted the metal.

The ISS’s depleted batteries were jettisoned to Earth in 2021 during an unguided reentry after failing to return to Earth, according to Ars Technica.

The International Space Station (ISS) had scheduled the debris to return to Earth, and the material was expected to land in the ocean near Cuba and Cancun – but could land near Fort Myers, astronomer Jonathan McDowell posted on X.

Otero responded to her post with photos of the palm-sized objectspeculating that he had missed Fort Myers and landed in Naples.

NASA has recovered the metal object, according to Ars Technica, and is determining its origin “as soon as possible.”

Most of the 5,800 pounds of debris would have been burned up upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, with a Johnson Space Center spokesperson telling Ars Technica that they “did not expect any of it to have survived the return to school.

However, other agencies like the Aerospace Corporation and the European Space Agency suspected that some parts would survive, notably the nickel-hydrogen batteries.

However, it is not clear who is responsible for the debris. NASA owns the batteries, but the Japanese space agency, Jaxa, owns the paddle from which the debris was launched.

The Post has contacted Otero and NASA for comment.