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Meteorites are very common since there are many small objects floating through space, and the Earth occasionally crosses their path. In the vast majority of cases, they burn up in the atmosphere without any issues.
You can see small meteorites flashing in the sky at night, and at some times of the year, you can see them hundreds of times per night if you watch carefully.
Larger meteors that are able to survive our atmosphere are far less common, but they do occur, and that is what happened in March of 2026.
At around 6:55 PM local time, a large fireball flew through the sky for approximately 6 seconds. Then, as it broke apart, a fragment of the meteor crashed through the roof of a home, leaving a hole about the size of a soccer ball. The Korblenz Police reported:
“This evening around 7:00 p.m., a burnt-up celestial body struck the roof of a residential building in the Güls district of Koblenz. No one was injured.”
Fortunately, nobody was injured. The impact was not caught on any video as far as we know, but the meteor itself was caught on video as it became a fireball flying over Germany and much of the rest of the region. You can see a video of it here:
The European Space Agency (ESA) reported that the meteor was at most a few meters in diameter, so while it did cause damage, it would not have threatened a large area.
Objects that are larger than 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter are estimated to hit the Earth about once every 10 years. It is at this size that they become a real threat to those in the area, since the impact could cause serious damage to the surrounding property.
Smaller objects are primarily a threat if they hit someone directly, which is very rare.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt in this event, and the various space agencies of the world are working on improving their ability to detect meteors and asteroids as early as possible so that those that are a major threat can be addressed.
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For now, however, these small meteors are almost never seen before they enter our atmosphere, and certainly not soon enough that anything could be done about them.
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