Bldg. 06.42 - Room 001 (seminar room) / Online

30 June 2026

Dario Eickhoff and Joachim Ritter, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Geophysical Institute 

15:30

On 8 March 2026, at 17:55 UTC, a large fireball was observed over France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany. Optical analyses suggest that the meteoroid had a diameter exceeding one metre, classifying it as a potentially hazardous object capable of causing environmental and human damage. This classification was confirmed by the impact of the meteoroid on a residential building, which tore a decimetre-sized hole in the roof. The size of the meteoroid and the fact that it fell over several dense seismic networks provides an exceptional opportunity to characterise its trajectory and physical parameters. We identified meteoroid-related signals on 95 seismic stations and three collocated infrasound and seismic stations. We then used these signals to apply a novel trajectory reconstruction method based on Bayesian inference and ray tracing in a complex, realistic atmosphere that takes wind into account. This approach yields geometric parameters, including an elevation angle of 15.8+0.2-0.2, an azimuth angle of  52.9+0.2-0.2 relative to north, and a velocity of  17+2-2 km s-1. Leveraging the exceptional density of seismic stations, we further constrain its effective ablation to  0.04+0.01-0.01 s² km⁻², and its pre-ablation mass to 300+180-90 kg. Using the seismic data and ray tracing additionally allowed us to constrain 4-5 fragmentation locations along the meteoroid’s atmospheric trajectory.
We computed a strewn field from the reconstructed trajectory, which was validated by the known location of the building that was struck and the meteorites found within the building that accumulated to a mass of approximately 1 kg. This case study demonstrates that rapid acoustic-seismic trajectory solutions and strewn field estimates can be obtained within days of a meteorite fall, which provides directly applicable practical value for meteorite recovery efforts.