\tSpace Safety<\/p>\n
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At approximately 18:55 CET (17:55 UTC) on Sunday 8 March 2026, a very bright fireball moving from the southwest to the northeast was observed by many people in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
The fireball glowed for approximately six seconds, leaving a visible trail in the sky before fracturing into pieces. The event was recorded by many dedicated meteor cameras, such as those of the European AllSky7 fireball network<\/a>, as well as mobile phones and other cameras. Some observers report that the event was audible from the ground.<\/p>\n At least one house in the German town of Koblenz-G\u00fcls is reported to have been struck by small pieces of the resulting meteorites. There are no reports of physical injury.<\/p>\n \t\t\tFireball over Europe, 8 March 2026 \t\tESA analysis of the event<\/p>\n The Planetary Defence<\/a> team in ESA\u2019s Space Safety Programme is using all available data to estimate the size of the object. They currently assess it to have been up to a few metres in diameter.<\/p>\n Objects in this size range strike Earth from once every few weeks to once every few years.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tInfographic: asteroid danger explained<\/a><\/p>\n The timing and direction of the impact indicate that the object was likely not visible to any of the large-scale telescope sky surveys that scan the night sky for such objects.<\/p>\n This is not unusual: to date, there have only been 11 successful detections of natural space objects<\/a> prior to their atmospheric entry. Small objects approaching Earth from brighter, daytime regions of the sky (even around dusk, as in this case) are missed in most cases.<\/p>\n ESA\u2019s Planetary Defence team is working to improve the rate at which we detect these objects prior to impact through activities such as the Flyeye asteroid survey telescope<\/a> project.<\/p>\n Further updates will be provided as new information becomes available.<\/p>\n
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