A Florida resident is contemplating legal action against Japan’s space agency following a harrowing incident in which falling debris believed to be from the International Space Station (ISS) tore through his home.
Alejandro Otero of Naples, Florida, recounted that a piece of space debris crashed into his residence, The Sun reported. The incident was just a hair’s breadth from being disastrous as it narrowly avoided striking his son.
In a statement to local media outlet WINK News, Mr. Otero expressed his disbelief at the randomness and severity of the situation.
“I was shaken, I was completely in disbelief – what are the chances of something landing on my house with such force, to cause so much damage?” he said. “Obviously I’m super grateful no one got hurt.”
Mr. Otero released security camera footage on X capturing the audible impact of the falling debris, accompanied by his commentary outlining the near-miss incident and extensive destruction last month.
The visuals from the scene reveal a significant breach of the roof, damage to the ceiling, shattered floorboards, and the object in question – a metallic cylinder measuring around 10 centimeters in length and 4 centimeters in diameter.
Given the constrained storage on the ISS, astronauts are compelled to discard waste into space routinely. This discarded material typically enters Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrates upon re-entry.
But things did not go according to plan when a heavy pallet of expired batteries broke off, and it appears that fragments of it withstood the intense heat of re-entering over the Gulf of Mexico.
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