On Monday, NASA confirmed that a mysterious object that crashed through the roof of a Florida residence last month was a piece of space debris from equipment discarded at the International Space Station. The cylindrical object, which pierced through a home in Naples on March 8, was subsequently transported to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis.

According to the space agency, the object was identified as a metal support previously used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. This pallet was ejected from the space station in 2021, with the expectation that its contents would fully burn up upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. However, a portion of the debris managed to survive.

The piece of metal weighed 1.6 pounds (0.7 kilograms) and measured 4 inches (10 centimeters) tall and roughly 1 1/2 inches (4 centimeters) wide.

Alejandro Otero, the homeowner, recounted to television station WINK that he was away on vacation when his son informed him of the incident. Otero returned home early to assess the damage, finding that the object had punctured through his ceiling and caused significant destruction to the flooring.

“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” Otero expressed. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”