Florida man: Space junk crashed through roof, almost hit son
- Debris from space station pallet allegedly hit Florida home
- Japan space agency owned pallet, potentially liable
- Extremely rare for space junk to survive reentry, hit ground
In this image made from video, a cylindrical object is seen on beach in Green Head, Australia, July 17, 2023. Authorities were investigating on Tuesday whether a cylindrical object about the size of a small car that washed up on a remote Australian beach is space junk from a foreign rocket. (CHANNEL 9 via AP)
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(NewsNation) — A Florida man believes a piece of space junk from the International Space Station crashed through his roof and narrowly missed hitting his son.
Last month, astronauts jettisoned a pallet of used batteries from the ISS, the heaviest trash dump yet from the orbiting lab. While most space debris burns up in the atmosphere during reentry, part of the pallet appears to have survived the fiery plunge over the Gulf of Mexico, per Metro News.
Alejandro Otero shared footage capturing the sound of the debris punching through his roof and ceiling March 8.
Photos show roof tiles shattered, floorboards broken and a small metal cylinder about 4 inches long lying amid the wreckage.
“It tore through the roof and went through two floors. Almost hit my son,” Otero wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Otero told WINK news he was “shaken” and grateful no one was injured, calling it an “unbelievable” stroke of bad luck.
Aerospace experts say the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency may be liable since the pallet belonged to Japan, even though NASA owned the batteries, Metro News reported.
While extremely rare, pieces of space junk have struck buildings before, including a SpaceX rocket part hitting an Australian farm in 2022. In 1997, Lottie Williams was grazed by suspected space debris while walking in an Oklahoma park, making her the only person thought to have been directly struck by falling space junk.
