NASA says part of the International Space Station collided with a house in Florida

NASA has confirmed that the object that crashed into a house in Florida earlier this month was part of the International Space Station (ISS).

The metal object was discarded from the orbital site in March 2021, NASA said on Monday after analyzing the sample at Kennedy Space Center.

The 1.6-pound (0.7 kg) metal object tore off two layers of the roof after reentering Earth's atmosphere.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero said his son was nearly injured in the collision.

NASA said the object was part of about 5,800 pounds of hardware that the station disposed of after installing new lithium-ion batteries.

“The devices were expected to completely burn up during entry into the Earth’s atmosphere on March 8, 2024. However, a piece of the devices escaped and crashed into a house in Naples, Florida,” the agency said.

The debris was determined to be part of a bracket used to mount the batteries on a charging platform.

The body is made of Inconel alloy, and measures 4 x 1.6 inches (10.1 cm x 4 cm).

Mr. Otero told the CBS affiliate wink tv That the device made a “tremendous noise” when it exploded in his home.

He said: “It almost hit my son. He lived two rooms apart and heard everything.”

Mr Otero continued: “I was shaking, I was in complete disbelief. What are the odds of something falling on my house with that force to cause all this damage.”

“I'm very thankful that no one was hurt.”

According to NASA, the International Space Station will “conduct a detailed investigation” into how the debris survived the combustion.

Space waste is becoming a growing problem. Earlier this month, sky watchers in California saw mysterious golden streaks moving across the night sky.

US officials later determined that the light display was caused by burning debris from a Chinese rocket that had returned to Earth's orbit.

In February, a Chinese satellite known as Object K burned up while re-entering the atmosphere over Hawaii.

Last year, a giant metal dome covered in barnacles found on a Western Australian beach was identified as a component of an Indian missile. There are plans to display it alongside parts of NASA's Skylab, which crashed in Australia in 1979.