German cottage destroyed by meteor

BERLIN (Reuters) - A fire that destroyed a cottage near Bonn and injured
a 77-year-old man was probably caused by a meteor and witnesses saw an
arc of blazing light in the sky, German police said on Friday.

Burkhard Rick, a spokesman for the police in Siegburg east of Bonn, said
the fire gutted the cottage and badly burnt the man's hands and face in
the incident on October 10.
"We sought assistance from Bochum observatory and they noted that at
that particular moment the earth was near a field of meteoroid splinter
and it could be assumed that particles had entered the atmosphere," he
said.

"The particles usually don't reach the surface because they disintegrate
in the atmosphere," he added. "But some can make it to the ground. We
believe this was a bolide (meteoric fireball) with a size of no more
than 10 mm."

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