By BlueShift | 2026-03-19

A "falling star" caused a stir in the central German city of Koblenz during a week that saw local media outlets reporting on more terrestrial concerns, such as potholes caused by frost and noise from a train line overhaul.

On the evening of March 8, people in Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands observed "a very bright fireball moving from the southwest to the northeast," the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

"The fireball glowed for approximately six seconds, leaving a visible trail in the sky before fracturing into pieces," it said.

Emergency services reported a surge in calls as the meteor streaked across the skies, with witnesses describing a loud bang on impact, state-funded broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.

At least one house in the Koblenz-Güls district is reported to have been struck by small pieces of the resulting meteorites, per the ESA.

A "football-sized hole" was left in one roof, according to the state office for fire and disaster protection.

No injuries were reported, per AFP.

The event -- which already has its own Wikipedia page -- was recorded by dedicated meteor cameras, including those of the European AllSky7 fireball network, and by observers with cameras and phones.

AllSky7 is a citizen-science initiative designed to monitor, record and analyze meteors, fireballs, and potential meteorite-dropping events in high-resolution.

The network began in Germany in 2018 and has grown to include stations in more than 25 countries across Europe, as well as in New Zealand, Antarctica and the United States.

After the impact, international meteorite hunters and researchers made their way to the area to search for fragments of the rock, daily newspaper Rhein-Zeitung reported.

Initial media reports claimed the rock fragments were "not radioactive."

Asteroid 2024 YR4 will not hit moon

The ESA said its planetary defense team is analyzing all the data collected about the object, which they believe was a few meters wide.

Objects in this size range strike Earth from once every few weeks to once every few years, the agency explained.

"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," it added.

It noted that this is not unusual, as these kinds of objects flying in from space have only previously been spotted 11 times before entering Earth's atmosphere.

The fireball came days after the ESA announced that a massive asteroid would not smash into the moon in 2032. Fresh data from the James Webb Space Telescope also confirmed that asteroid 2024 YR4 would miss the moon.

Last year, 2024 YR4 -- which is big enough to level a city -- was briefly given a 3.1% chance of hitting Earth. This was the highest odds such a giant space rock has ever been given of striking our planet.

Further observations ruled out any threat to Earth, but there was still a 4% chance the asteroid could collide with the moon.

A direct hit would have offered astronomers an unprecedented view of such an epic smash -- and could have blasted out meteors that threatened satellites around Earth.