ESA analysing fireball over Europe on 8 March 2026

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, as well as mobile phones and other cameras. Some observers report that the event was audible from the ground.

At least one house in the German town of Koblenz-Güls is reported to have been struck by small pieces of the resulting meteorites. There are no reports of physical injury.

ESA analysis of the event

The Planetary Defence team in ESA’s 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.

Objects in this size range strike Earth from once every few weeks to once every few years.

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.

This is not unusual: to date, there have only been 11 successful detections of natural space objects 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.

ESA’s 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 project.

Further updates will be provided as new information becomes available.

Contact:
ESA Media relations: 
media@esa.int