On the evening of March 8, around 9:00 PM Moscow time, residents of Western Europe witnessed a spectacular cosmic show. A large bolide, ranging in size from one to several meters, streaked across the sky above six countries, from France to the Netherlands, according to the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Large Meteor over Rotterdam
Large Meteor over Rotterdam

The object moved from southwest to northeast and was captured by dozens of cameras and phones. Flashes and rumbling accompanied its flight for approximately 10 seconds. The most active destruction of the body occurred at an altitude of 40 to 20 kilometers in the area of the German cities of Koblenz and Frankfurt am Main. The brightness of the bolide at this moment was estimated at minus 15–20 magnitudes — hundreds of times brighter than the full Moon.

One of the fragments, several centimeters in size, pierced the roof of a residential building in Koblenz. Reports of falling fragments are also coming from other regions of Germany, which confirms that the meteorite shattered into many pieces, some of which continued to move after the explosion.

The event evokes many associations with the observation of a similar bolide on October 27, 2025, which then flew north of Moscow over the territory of the Vologda, Yaroslavl, Tver, and Novgorod regions and was also filmed by many stationary cameras and video recorders, which ultimately made it possible to determine its trajectory and the center of the fragments' scatter with good accuracy. One of the fragments, which also pierced the roof of a house, was subsequently discovered 50 km from this center in the area of the village of Okulovka.
Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

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