On the afternoon of March 8, 2024, Alejandro Otero, who lives in Florida, USA, was enjoying a rare vacation when he was suddenly disturbed by a rapid phone ringing.
When he picked up the phone, he found that the number was from his 19-year-old son, who did not take his son with him on this trip, but just asked him to stay at home and guard the house.
A 19-year-old who is enjoying a time without parental control would not have called him unless there were special circumstances. As soon as he called, he realized that something important was happening, and Otero answered the phone without delay.
When a man sits at home, evil comes from heaven
When the phone was connected, there was a flurry and panic on the other end. His son was saying that he heard a loud noise, and the house seemed to shake, not like an earthquake, like something had fallen from the sky and hit his house.
Hearing the news, Otero was not in the mood for a vacation, so he immediately packed his bags and rushed home.
When Otero arrives at the house, he finds that the situation is even worse than his son described, with the roof, ceiling and floor of the house penetrating through, and finally a cylindrical metal object is found in the basement.
He soon realized that the object was not supposed to be a meteorite, but rather a man-made object, weighing about 900 grams, with one end melted away by the high temperature, and the other end smooth and rounded, with a shallow, uniform groove running along the side. Apparently the object fell from a great height, otherwise it would not have had such a huge impact.
This is a man sitting at home, and evil comes from heaven. Otero held his breath in his heart, if it was a meteorite, it would be better to say, according to the price of the meteorite, more than 900 grams, which was enough to make up for his loss.
However, this is a man-made object, so he has to figure out what this object is, is it harmful, who threw this object down and smashed his house through.
Immediately, he posted the unidentified object on the Internet for help, or the Internet is so magical, no matter what strange thing you post, someone will always recognize it. Some netizens found the truth of the matter according to the clues.
It turned out to be space junk
It turned out that on January 11, 2021, on the International Space Station (ISS), about 2.6 tons of giant space junk was dropped, and at that time, astronomer Jonathan McDowell pointed out that this behavior was extremely irresponsible, although according to his estimates, most of the space junk burned up during the return to the atmosphere.
Eventually, about half a ton of space junk will reach the surface of the earth, and these unburned debris will pose a great threat to the safety of people on the ground.
Three years later, the European Space Agency (ESA) issued a warning that it would return to the Earth's atmosphere on March 8, 2024 due to uncontrolled space junk.
Isn't this a coincidence? The garbage dropped by the International Space Station in 2021 fell into the atmosphere on March 8, 2024, and then the Otero family's house was attacked by an unknown object falling from the sky.
After having these clues, Otero immediately contacted NASA, and they immediately sent people to investigate, according to NASA's estimates, the space junk fell in the Gulf of Mexico, and Naple, Florida, USA, was located directly below the site, and it was in the direction of the fall of space junk.
They determined that the unidentified object, which was space junk dropped from space, was part of a cargo pallet called the EP-9, which was used to install the space station's pillars, mainly made of Inconel, which was designed to hold batteries to the pallet, an alloy known for its resistance to high temperatures and extreme environments.
At that time, the batteries were fixed on EP-9 trays in groups of nine, and the overall weight was more than 2.6 tons.
Why does the International Space Station discard such a large amount of space junk?
Normally, this kind of thing is recovered by the Japanese side, because the object is so large that it poses a big safety hazard to the ground, but the thing is finally dropped from the International Space Station.
Not only did it fall down, but it also smashed through the American's own house. What's going on here?
On November 8, 2018, when the Soyuz spacecraft was launched from Kazakhstan, the rocket malfunctioned two minutes later, which led to the termination of the flight, and finally NASA astronaut Nick Hagrid and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin escaped from the escape tower.
Their main mission to the space station this time was to go out of the capsule to perform a spacewalk and install a set of batteries delivered by the Japanese cargo spacecraft, but the launch failed, and this matter was delayed, and they could only wait for the next batch of astronauts to complete the mission.
Under normal circumstances, one group is loaded and then one group is taken away, but due to the failure of the last mission, a set of excess batteries has accumulated in the space station.
Although there are new cargo ships coming up, they can only carry one group at a time, which is like an old lady buying apples and eating them every time. Constantly buying, constantly rotting, always not being able to eat fresh apples, the rhythm is completely disrupted.
On this issue, many people must have questions, there are so many spacecraft flying to the International Space Station, leaving a vacant seat and bringing it down, why is there always one more group?
This is the case, but the EP-9 cargo pallet is special, it belongs to Japan's patented technology, that is, it can only be carried by Japanese spaceships, and other spaceships cannot be carried, and the interface is not right.
The position in the International Space Station is already tight, not to mention that there is no way to put such a big guy into the space capsule, out of desperation, I can only use the robotic arm of the space station to grab the 2.6-ton battery pack.
In this way, not only is it a waste of space on the International Space Station, but also a robotic arm is wasted to grab, and it is not very safe, and it is not a joke to hit the space station at high speed if you don't grasp it steadily.
It is not a way to catch it like this, and in 2021, NASA decided to abandon this group of batteries and throw this group of batteries directly to the ground. It can free up the robotic arm, but also free up more space, and in order to eliminate potential safety hazards.
So in 2021, this group of batteries was discarded from space as space junk, and after the batteries were discarded, the speed of the batteries gradually decreased under the weak air resistance.
After countless circles around space, like a boomerang, it finally fell to the ground three years later, and the scene at the beginning of the article appeared, smashing through the American's own house.
So the final question is, who should the owner compensate for? If it weren't for every space agency that threw away the garbage, it wouldn't have hit his house. However, if it weren't for the Japanese Space Agency (NASA) coming up with such a somewhat "unique" design, the battery would not have been left in space for so long.
Who do you think American homeowners should turn to for compensation?