A small piece of debris from the International Space Station (ISS) punched through the roof of a home in the beachside town of Naples in Florida and embedded itself in the floor.

Measuring around 10cm by 4cm and weighing 700g, the object had been jettisoned from the space station in March 2021, the BBC quoted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) as saying on April 15.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero told local news outlet Wink News that his son, who was at home during the incident on March 8, heard a tremendous sound.

His son told him “something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling”.

Mr Otero said: “Immediately, I thought (it was) a meteorite.”

His son narrowly escaped the impact. “He was two rooms away and heard it all,” added Mr Otero.

Nasa said that the object was part of over 2.6 tonnes of hardware which was jettisoned by the ISS after the station installed new lithium-ion batteries.

The object was from a frame used to mount the batteries on a cargo pallet. The entire batch of hardware had been expected to fully burn up as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

“However, a piece of hardware survived and impacted a home in Naples, Florida,” the agency said, adding that a detailed investigation would be conducted.

Space junk has become a growing issue, according to the BBC.

Earlier in April, mysterious golden streaks were seen over the night sky in California. They were later determined by US officials to be from burning debris of a Chinese rocket re-entering Earth’s orbit.

In February, a Chinese satellite known as Object K burned up as it re-entered the atmosphere over Hawaii.

In 2023, a barnacle-covered giant metal dome found on a Western Australian beach was identified as a component of an Indian rocket.