© AMSLocation map of people who reported their testimony of the meteor fireball on Wednesday, February 21st.
A bolide (meteor brighter than the planet Venus) was observed over eastern France on Wednesday, February 21, at around 9pm local time. It was seen over the Côte-d'Or region in particular, although many of the 110+ reports (event
693-2018) submitted to the American Meteor Society (AMS) are from neighbouring European countries of Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
In Paris, netizens said they saw a "bolide with persistent trails", a "shooting green star" or a meteorite "disintegrate" reports
Ouest-France.
The phenomenon was recorded by cameras of the FRIPON network (Fireball Recovery and Interplanetary Observation Network), according to
L'Est Eclair, one of which is located in Côte-d'Or, in Châtillon-sur-Seine.
Just over a week ago, on Tuesday, February 12, another
bolide was captured over western France.
Comment: The other meteor fireball within the past week over the Russian Urals is reported here: Fast moving meteor fireball captured on dashcam over Russian city A few weeks ago another meteor fireball was filmed over Ekaterinburg, Russia.
It was recently the fifth anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteor which NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson referred to as "a cosmic wake-up call." See: Five Years after the Chelyabinsk Meteor: NASA's efforts in planetary defense.
Recently NASA created a 'Planetary Defense Coordination Office' with a view to track meteors headed toward Earth, and "redirect" potentially dangerous asteroids as part of a long-term planetary defense goal.
However, asteroid 'redirection' or 'deflection' remains just theoretical. A more accurate way of looking at it is that NASA is funding deflection and redirection of the topic of space threats by 'getting the message out' that 'everything is just fine'.
As Fireball Numbers Increased Again in 2017 it is well worth remembering what can come out of the sky, without any warning at all: