We always say that when people are unlucky, drink cold water to stuff their teeth, but it is really unlucky, and there is no bizarre experience of the owner of a luxury house in the United States.
After spending so much money to build a mansion with an independent swimming pool, the owner of the house never imagined that one day his mansion would be broken through by garbage and directly smashed a hole in the roof and floor.
And this garbage is also very special, it is not an ordinary household garbage on our earth, but a garbage from space three years ago.
How could space junk suddenly smash into the earth and smash through a mansion, what is this garbage? Who should the homeowner claim compensation from?
According to a report by Fox News on the 24th, the incident occurred in March this year and is located in Florida, USA.
That's right, Florida again.
The owner of the mansion is named Alejandro Otero and lives in the coastal city of Naples, Florida.
At the time of the accident, Otero's son was the only one at home, and Otero himself was on vacation from home.
According to the son's account, he heard a loud bang at home at that time, and it was clear that something had fallen from the sky and smashed directly into his home.
But this voice was so loud that Otero's son didn't even react at the time, what kind of thing could cause such a great power?
Following the sound, the son realized that a hole had been smashed into the roof of his house, and even the floor was not spared, and it was also pierced by heavy objects.
Seeing that the good end of the house was smashed, the son hurriedly contacted Otero, who was on vacation.
Although his son had already told the family in advance that the situation was a little bad, of course, when Otero saw all this with his own eyes, he was still stunned, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing at all.
Because he really couldn't imagine that any object could have such a force to smash directly into his home and cause so much damage.
Later, Otero felt lucky the most, because his son was alone at home at the time, and fortunately, the place where he fell was far away from his son.
If there were people standing under the smashed roof, it would be a human life.
Otero followed the marks left by the smashed ceiling and floor and found a metal object, a mysterious cylinder weighing about 726 grams, about 10 centimeters high, and about 4 centimeters in diameter.
Where was a one-and-a-half-pound thing thrown from to cause so much damage to Otero's home?
Otoro then posted a photo of his experience and the mysterious object online, and he also wanted to know what it was.
Soon, some netizens recognized that the culprit of the accident was most likely a part from space.
Ottoro contacted NASA and sent the mysterious object to the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
It was eventually confirmed that the mysterious object was actually an alloy pillar on the cargo pallet that holds the battery on the robotic arm of the International Space Station.
Since this metal object originally belonged to the International Space Station, why did it smash into the Earth in a good way?
In fact, it was abandoned as early as March 2021, when the personnel of NASA's ground control center once operated the robotic arm of the International Space Station and released a cargo pallet containing an old nickel-metal hydride battery, which weighed about 2.6 tons with the old battery.
In other words, a piece of space junk from three years ago went around the earth for an unknown number of times, and finally smashed into Florida in the United States and smashed through the mansion of the Okro family.
In order to maintain the normal operation of the International Space Station, it is necessary to renovate the power system, which is also one of the important tasks in recent years.
From 2017 to 2020, Japan's HTV cargo spacecraft delivered 24 sets of lithium-ion batteries to the International Space Station to replace 48 old nickel-metal hydride batteries.
The battery needed to be manually altered, so the ISS arranged for astronauts to perform 17 spacewalks, which were replaced in February 2021.
According to the original plan, this batch of old batteries would leave the space station with the HTV cargo spacecraft and then burn up when it entered the atmosphere.
But in 2018, the failed launch of Russia's Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft disrupted the ISS spacewalk program, and as a result, one of the HTV spacecraft did not leave with an old battery tray.
The old batteries were not properly housed and remained on the ISS.
The metal object that pierced the Otero house was one of the components of the battery tray holders.
Although the plan was disrupted, the batteries certainly couldn't be on the station all the time, so in March 2021, NASA made the decision to discard the old batteries and pallets in orbit.
According to NASA's idea, these waste equipment will fly around the earth for 2~4 years and be safely burned out in the atmosphere.
Parts of both batteries and pallets should be completely burned out during the flight around the earth, so that they will not land on the earth and pose a safety threat to our lives.
However, the fact is that the parts were not completely burned, and one piece was smashed into the home of Otoro, Florida.
NASA experts also can't understand how parts that should have burned out have slipped through the net.
The experts then used an engineering model to simulate the object's passage through the atmosphere to determine why the debris had not been completely burned.
This is complicated by the fact that although the battery is owned by NASA, the battery tray was actually launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
It's really people sitting at home, and space junk is falling from the sky.
Otero's home was smashed through by space junk, and someone must be responsible for the damage.
After consulting with a lawyer, Otoro filed a claim for compensation from NASA in the amount of $80,000.
NASA is required by law to respond within six months, and if the issue is not properly addressed, Otero has the right to file a lawsuit in federal court.
Since July 10, 1954, when the former Soviet Union successfully launched the first satellite in human history, various countries have made more and more frequent use of space.
As of 2021, there are more than 7,000 satellites in orbit (including operational and non-operational states), and according to the detection data published by the radar network of the US intercontinental missile defense system, it is estimated that there are more than 100 million pieces of man-made space debris orbiting the earth, ranging in size from millimeter, centimeter to meter.
Therefore, we should not just watch the matter of Otero, but should be vigilant and pay further attention to the related disposal of space junk, after all, it is related to our safety.
Resources:
[1] China Digital Science and Technology Museum, "Step by Step - The Past and Present Life of Space Junk", 2021-11-29
[2] Xinhua News Agency, "NASA: The mysterious object that smashed through American homes comes from the International Space Station", 2024-04-16