NASA investigates whether a piece of the International Space Station fell on a home in Florida

2024-04-04 21:17:00
Resident affected by space debris demands compensation (@AlejandroOtero)

NASA announced it is investigating whether an object that crashed into a home in southwest Florida last month came from the International Space Station.

Space agency workers received the object from the homeowner in Naples, Florida, last week and took it to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in that same state, where it is being analyzed to determine its origin, the agency said in an email. Thursday Josh Finch, NASA spokesman.

“We will provide more information once the analysis is completed,” Finch said.

Space debris generally disintegrates when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.

The object penetrated the roof of a home owned by Alejandro Otero on March 8. Otero told WINK that he was on vacation, but that his son notified him regarding what happened. He returned to the house early to inspect it and found a cylindrical object weighing regarding 0.9 kilos (2 pounds) that had entered through the ceiling and damaged the floor.

“I was shaking. She might not believe it. What are the chances of something falling on my house with such force and causing so much damage? “said Otero. “I’m super grateful that no one got hurt.”

Debris from the International Space Station might be behind this damage to a Florida home (@alejandroOtero)

Low Earth orbit is a repository of space debris, most of it from human-generated objects, such as pieces of spacecraft, rocket parts, satellites that no longer function, or explosions from objects in orbit that fly by. space at high speed.

According to the latest data from the European Space Agency, around the Earth there are some 35,150 cataloged debris, weighing 11,500 tons, from 640 ruptures, explosions, collisions or anomalous events that caused its fragmentation.

Sources from the European Space Agency (ESA) indicate, however, that “not all space debris is tracked and catalogued”: their estimates point to the presence of more than 131 million space debris objects between 1 millimeter and 10 centimeters. useless orbiting at an average of 36,000 kilometers per hour around the Earth.

Most space debris moves very fast and can reach speeds of almost 29,000 kilometers per hour, almost seven times faster than a bullet.

An impressive composition showing a variety of space debris moving elegantly in Earth’s orbit (Illustrative image Infobae)

Due to the speed and volume of the debris, experts agree that space junk poses a risk to the safety of people and property in space and on Earth.

The atmosphere is a useful ally in removing space debris, since below 480 kilometers above the surface most objects disintegrate naturally in the thick lower atmosphere and burn up in less than 10 years. However, above 100 kilometers, where the atmosphere is thinner, the opposite occurs and debris is lost to space.

Space debris experts agree that “it is not the responsibility of a single country, but of all countries that navigate in space,” and that its management is both an international challenge to solve and an opportunity to preserve the space environment for future exploration missions.

(With information from AP and EFE)

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