Meteorite traces a bright path across the Brazilian sky ahead of New Year's Eve

A spectacular fireball meteorite lit up the skies over Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, on December 30, marking possibly the last major meteor event of 2025. Footage captured its near-Moon brightness as it disintegrated over Santana do Livramento.

Gerardo Gomez, Sergio Queiroz and Anna Portella/Reuters

January 01, 2026

Meteorite traces a bright path across the Brazilian sky ahead of New Year's Eve

Dazzling fireball meteor lights up southern Brazil, marking what may be the last major meteor fall of 2025.

A dazzling meteorite fell on Tuesday (December 30) in southern Brazil, marking a close to a year that saw numerous unrecorded fireball events in 2024, according to an engineer.

The Heller & Jung Observatory shared footage of a fireball meteorite that fell and disintegrated in Rio Grande do Sul, with a magnitude (brightness) nearing that of the Moon.

The high-magnitude meteorite was recorded at 10:35 pm local time over the area of Santana do Livramento, according to the observatory director, Carlos Fernando Jung.

"It may have been the last major fireball of 2025, ending a year with several fireball meteor falls not recorded in 2024," Professor Jung said in an Instagram post.

Reuters was able to verify the location of the videos of the meteorite falling from matching buildings to file and satellite images.

The date the videos of meteorites falling were filmed were verified the timestamp on the footage and corroborating reports.

-Gerardo Gomez, Sergio Queiroz and Anna Portella