--- title: 'Great Pumpkin' Fireball Spotted Over Europe This Halloween description: A piece of cosmic debris let up the night sky over central Europe on Halloween, burning up over Sweden, Poland, Germany. canonical: https://time.com/4096612/fireball-halloween-europe/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-02T16:53:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:16:16.314Z article:section: Science og:title: 'Great Pumpkin' Fireball Spotted Over Europe This Halloween og:description: It blazed through the night sky og:url: https://time.com/4096612/fireball-halloween-europe/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc76da5ce2a3561b4/69886f2fcf40a8420ec40743/meteoroid-fire-ball-europe-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Meteoroid og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Great Pumpkin' Fireball Spotted Over Europe This Halloween twitter:description: It blazed through the night sky twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc76da5ce2a3561b4/69886f2fcf40a8420ec40743/meteoroid-fire-ball-europe-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Great Pumpkin' Fireball Spotted Over Europe This Halloween by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Nov 2, 2015 4:53 PM UTC  Meteoroid MeteoroidJoseph De Sciose—Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Nov 2, 2015 4:53 PM UTC A piece of cosmic debris lit up the night sky over central Europe on Halloween, burning up over Sweden, Poland, Germany and, of course, social media. The meteoroid burned very rapidly and brightly across the sky, though it’s still unclear what caused the event. The glowing trail behind the debris is typical of a meteor, according to [Slate](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad%5Fastronomy/2015/11/01/halloween%5Ffireball%5Fbright%5Fmeteor%5Fover%5Feurope.html). The solid part of the debris falls at a few dozen kilometers per second, fast enough to heat up the surrounding air to several thousand degrees. A number of YouTube videos—many taken from car cameras popular in much of central and eastern Europe—show the debris lighting up the night sky. In this one, the meteor turns the sky a greenish-blue. \[[Slate](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad%5Fastronomy/2015/11/01/halloween%5Ffireball%5Fbright%5Fmeteor%5Fover%5Feurope.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4096612/fireball-halloween-europe/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4096612/fireball-halloween-europe/"},"headline":"'Great Pumpkin' Fireball Spotted Over Europe This Halloween","datePublished":"2015-11-02T16:53:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:16:16.314Z","description":"It blazed through the night sky","url":"https://time.com/4096612/fireball-halloween-europe/","keywords":["astronomy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc76da5ce2a3561b4/69886f2fcf40a8420ec40743/meteoroid-fire-ball-europe-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc76da5ce2a3561b4/69886f2fcf40a8420ec40743/meteoroid-fire-ball-europe-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Meteoroid","caption":"Meteoroid","creditText":"Joseph De Sciose—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/astronomy/","name":"astronomy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4096612/fireball-halloween-europe/","name":"'Great Pumpkin' Fireball Spotted Over Europe This Halloween"}}]}] ```