The Strasbourg fire brigade and police are wondering on Monday 20 November about the possibility of a meteorite fall after an intervention on a vehicle with a hole of 50 centimetres in diameter on the roof.
Firefighters had been called in the early morning to intervene on a "smoke release on a car" parked in a peripheral district of the Alsatian city.
No radioactivity
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Following the reconnaissance of the first team, we suspect the fall of a stellar body," wrote the Bas-Rhin SDIS in its intervention report published at midday. "When we arrived, we saw a relatively large impact, with a diameter of about 50 centimetres, which went through the roof, the underbody and the fuel tank of the vehicle," fire captain Matthieu Colobert told AFP. Research has concluded that there is no radioactivity.
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No objects were found," he said. "Either the object was so small that it cannot be found, or the impact was such that the object disintegrated and turned to dust," he speculated. "We still have a suspicion about a gravel" about two centimeters wide found at the scene, he said. The gravel was handed over to the police for further analysis to determine its nature.
Read alsoThe meteorite that killed the dinosaurs fell in the spring
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It's an object the size of a hazelnut, which looks like burnt wood, very light," a police spokesman told AFP. He announced that the object would be sent to Paris to a forensic department. "Did an object come from outer space, that's the whole question," the officer said. "Even a ball thrown at very high speed downhill can do damage. But we still have to prove that it's an object that comes from space."
