NASA confirms mystery object that crashed through Florida home came from space station

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NAPLES, Fla. - A strange item that hurtled through a Naples man's home was a piece of space hardware discarded from the International Space Station, NASA confirmed on Monday.

READ: NASA investigates whether space station battery crashed through Florida home

On March 8, Alejandro Otero, of Naples, posted on social media that an object he believed came from space tore through his home. 

NASA has since completed an analysis of the object and determined that the cylindrical object came from a cargo pallet containing 5,800 pounds of aging batteries from the space station.

The batteries were dumped after new lithium-ion versions were delivered as part of an upgrade to the ISS. 

The pallet had been jettisoned from the ISS in March 2021, according to NASA, and was expected to fully burn up during entry into the Earth's atmosphere on March 8. However, a piece survived and impacted Otero's home. 

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NASA analyzed the object at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

"The agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet," NASA wrote in their statement. "The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter."

In the statement, NASA pledged to find out how the debris survived entering the atmosphere and update modeling and analysis, as needed. 

"NASA remains committed to responsibly operating in low Earth orbit, and mitigating as much risk as possible to protect people on Earth when space hardware must be released."