three years ago, NASA throws away a bunch of old batteries Launched from the International Space Station (ISS), it is hoped it will burn up through Earth’s atmosphere. Debris from the International Space Station finally reentered the atmosphere a few weeks ago, but some of it may have survived and smashed up a house in Florida.
March 8, a two-pound cylindrical object crashed through the roof of a Naples, Florida, home, causing a hole in the ceiling and floor.When the incident occurred, it coincided with Reentry of International Space Station palletwhich fell into the atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico on the same day and eventually flew to southwest Florida.
“I was shaking. I was in complete disbelief. Something fell on my house with such force and caused so much damage,” said Alejandro Otero, the owner of the house. ? ” Tell wink news. “I’m just so grateful that no one was hurt.” Otero contacted NASA and began asking for help from others online to help him track the object’s origins from the sky.
Otero contacted astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who has studied data from thousands of atmospheric reentries, including those from the International Space Station tray. “We get re-entries like this all the time, where someone from hundreds of miles away says, ‘I found this weird thing in my backyard, it could have fallen today or it could have been there for a week,’ ‘Then I rolled my eyes and moved on,” McDowell told Gizmodo. “But it comes from the roof, and at the right time, in a place consistent with its existence. [a piece of the pallet] So that’s enough to keep the follow-up hopeful. “
McDowell put Otero in touch with Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit research and development center. NASA subsequently collected fragments of Otero and is currently analyzing them to determine their origin. The time and location are consistent with an old battery tray from the space station, but its origin and nature have yet to be confirmed.
In March 2021, a 2.9-ton pallet containing 9 batteries was Thrown into space by the Canadaarm2 robotic arm of the International Space Station, it slowly circled toward Earth before making an uncontrolled re-entry. The tray was the largest object ever thrown from the International Space Station, but NASA had hoped that the entire object would burn up upon reentry, or at least that debris would not hit habitable areas.
However, McDowell expressed concern about the giant piece of space junk when it was launched, saying it was too big for an uncontrolled re-entry. “NASA was rolling the dice … and they rolled an unfortunate die,” he said.
Uncontrolled disposal of such large objects is unusual. The old batteries were supposed to be placed on the Japanese HTV cargo ship for proper disposal. However, a backlog of orders forced NASA to use the space station’s robotic arm to throw the batteries into cargo trays, which resulted in an uncontrolled reentry.
this European Space Agency (ESA) is also monitoring the re-entry of the pallet and estimates that some parts may reach the ground, but the likelihood of people being hit is very low.
“It’s like a tray or a small part of the battery, or part of the battery structure,” McDowell added. “So you have a two-ton thing re-entering the atmosphere, and this is a tiny fraction of it that survives and goes through this poor guy’s house.” Or at least, that’s what the story seems to be.
It’s unclear what will happen if it’s proven that the cylinder did come from the International Space Station, or which organization will be responsible for compensating the Florida family. In fact, there aren’t even procedures in place for civilians to report such incidents. In this case, it takes a vocal homeowner to get someone’s attention online, but that may not always be the case.
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