Meteor Seen Over the Netherlands Sent Fragments Into German Homes
A bright meteor streaked across the sky over the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany on Sunday evening, with fragments landing on rooftops in west Germany.
Thousands of people across the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany looked up in surprise on Sunday evening as a blazing fireball crossed the sky. The event was reported at around 18:55 CET on March 8 and was logged by more than 2,300 people through the international fireball reporting network. Videos spread rapidly on social media and police stations across the Netherlands received a wave of calls.
Rentals in the Netherlands
Signaal tracks the Dutch rental market and notifies you the moment something matches your search. Be first to apply.
What people saw
Police control rooms across the Netherlands reported a wide range of observations depending on where people were standing. Some witnesses thought they saw a rocket, possibly because of news about the war in the Middle East. Others reported a comet, and in Lelystad some people feared a plane was going down.
Meteorologist Wouter van Bernebeek said it was most likely a meteor, a small piece of space debris that burns up as it enters the atmosphere and leaves a yellowish trail of light behind it.
Marc Van den Broeck of the Volkssterrenwacht Urania observatory said the object entered the atmosphere at a height of around 70 kilometres and was travelling at approximately 100,000 kilometres per hour. Air traffic control in the Netherlands could not detect the object on radar, likely because it was flying too high.
Damage in Germany
Parts of the meteor came down in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where rooftops were damaged. Damage reports came in from the Hunsrück region, the Eifel highlands and from the city of Koblenz. In Koblenz, a fragment broke through the roof of a house and landed in a bedroom. People were inside at the time but nobody was injured. No damage was reported in the Netherlands or Belgium.
Belgian astronomers at Volkssterrenwacht Urania said the original meteoroid may have been more than one metre in diameter. Events of this scale happen annually but usually over the ocean, which covers three quarters of the Earth's surface. A strike in a densely populated area is considered quite unusual.
What it actually was
Researchers from Werkgroep Meteoren, the Dutch meteor observation group, said there were no expected re-entries of space debris around the time of the event, suggesting the object was a natural body from the solar system. It has since been confirmed that the object was not space debris but a natural meteoroid, and the fragments recovered in Germany appear to match the meteor.
Tracking reports from witnesses showed the meteor travelled from France in the direction of Germany. Recovered fragments will be analysed in the coming days to determine the exact composition of the rock.
