Bright object and debris fall in France in 1988

Summary

On December 21, 1988, around 0:50 AM, hundreds of witnesses across France, especially along a north-south axis, observed a bright white object with an orange-yellow trail crossing the sky. The phenomenon moved at high speed and no sound was heard. At the end of its trajectory, the object broke into several pieces. The next day, a farmer south of Bourges found a metal fragment about 70 cm long in his field. After analysis, it was determined to be a piece of the nozzle from a Russian Soyouz rocket. This rocket had been launched on December 16, 1988, from Plesetsk (USSR) to place the COSMOS 1984 satellite in orbit. This was an optical reconnaissance satellite of the Yantar 4K2 type, which re-entered Earth's atmosphere on February 13, 1989.