"Retired ISS Batteries Plunge to Earth: 5800 Pounds of Space Junk Reentry"
A 5,800-pound object, known as Exposed Pallet 9 (EP9), containing old Nickel-Hydrogen batteries was jettisoned from the International Space Station in March 2021 and re-entered Earth's atmosphere today, falling over the Gulf of Mexico between Cancun and Cuba. The object, with the approximate mass of a large SUV, was tracked by a satellite tracker and was predicted to re-enter in two-to-four years. The re-entry was within the expected window, and the majority of space objects re-enter the atmosphere in a natural way, with most fragments burning up before reaching the ground.