The European Commission and ESA’s Planetary Defence Office are jointly organising the “EU-ESA Workshop on Meteor Observations for Planetary Defence”, which will take place on 3-5 November 2026 in Petralia Sottana, Sicily, Italy.

Small imminent impactors are now routinely detected before entering Earth’s atmosphere, creating new opportunities for collaboration across the planetary defence and meteor communities. For metre-scale objects, pre-impact telescopic observations can be combined with atmospheric measurements from fireball camera networks, radar, infrasound, seismic stations, and space-based sensors. These events provide a unique opportunity to connect an object’s orbit and physical properties before atmospheric entry with its subsequent trajectory, fragmentation, impact effects, and possible meteorite recovery.

Europe has strong capabilities across these different observational techniques. However, coordination and communication between the communities involved remain fragmented. The purpose of this workshop is therefore to bring together astronomers, meteor researchers, atmospheric-observation experts, and planetary defence specialists to develop a more integrated European approach to imminent impactors.

A link to the event website and registration portal can be found here.

The workshop programme has been organised primarily through invitations to relevant speakers and will cover the following sessions:

• Radar observations
• All-sky camera networks
• Infrasound and seismic observations
• Other opportunistic sensors
• Trajectory reconstruction, orbit determination, and strewn fields
• Spectroscopy and physical properties of fireballs
• From meteorites to planetary defence

Ample time will be reserved throughout the programme for discussions and exchanges between experts from different communities.

Speakers and interested participants are invited to register by 23 October 2026. Both in-person and remote participation will be possible. As the number of places available for in-person attendance is limited, participants wishing to attend locally are encouraged to register as soon as possible. All registration applications will be reviewed by the organisers.

A limited number of presentation slots remain available. In-person participants wishing to propose a relevant contribution are invited to contact the organisers with a proposed title and an abstract of no more than 300 words by 7 October 2026.