Space debris is typically designed to either burn up in the atmosphere or land in the ocean or other uninhabited areas. However, incidents like this highlight that such outcomes are not always guaranteed.
Previous Incidents of Space Debris
This isn’t the first time space debris has made an unplanned and potentially dangerous descent to Earth.
In May 2024, a large fragment of a SpaceX Dragon Capsule, comparable in size to a car hood, crash-landed at a mountaintop resort near Asheville, North Carolina. The debris was discovered in the middle of a hiking trail at the Glamping Collective.
“If it had landed on someone hiking that day, it would have certainly killed them,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in an interview with Business Insider.
In another incident in March, a two-pound piece of debris from the International Space Station (ISS) crashed through the roof of a Florida family’s home. The family has since filed a lawsuit against NASA.
