2024-04-19 12:09:53
And object that fell from the sky and crashed into an American’s house turned out to be a piece of debris ejected from the International Space Station (ISS)the US space agency NASA confirmed on Monday.
The strange story came to light last month when Alejandro Otero of Naples, a resident of the state of Florida (southeast), posted on the his son, on March 8.
It occurred at a time and place that closely matched official predictions about the atmospheric ignition of a fragment of a space cargo platform that was carrying old batteries and was jettisoned from the orbital outpost in 2021, making it a likely coincidence, according to space observers.
NASA, which later collected the fallen object at Otero’s house for analysis, confirmed in a new blog post that the guesses were true.
“Based on the analysis, the agency determined that the debris was a NASA flight support equipment strut used to place the batteries on the charging platform,” he said.
“The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 0.7 kilograms, measures 10 centimeters in height and 4 centimeters in diameter,” he explained.
NASA also pledged to investigate how the debris withstood total destruction in the atmosphere, adding that it would update its engineering models following the incident.
“NASA remains committed to operating responsibly in low Earth orbit and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space hardware must be released,” he said.
2024-04-19 12:09:53