Officials in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv Thursday said a bright flash that lit up the night sky over the city was likely a meteor and not a Russian missile attack or a falling U.S. satellite.
A security camera video and other images posted to social media show the sky suddenly light up as a bright object flashes and appears to fall toward the horizon and then disappear at about 10 p.m. Kyiv time Wednesday.
From his Telegram social media account, Kyiv's military administration chief, Serhiy Popko, said late Wednesday he believed the object was a retired satellite from the U.S. space agency, NASA. The agency had announced a decommissioned satellite used to monitor solar activity was expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere Wednesday.
A NASA spokesperson said the satellite was still in orbit and nowhere near Ukraine at the time the flash was seen.
While the flash reportedly triggered an air raid alert, Popko also said it was not a missile or drone attack, a regular occurrence since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. He said the city’s air defenses were not automatically activated.
There was much speculation on Ukrainian social media, including jokes that the mysterious flash could have been caused by an alien spacecraft. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, posted a flying saucer emoji on his official Twitter account.
Officials with Ukraine’s space agency said the object was likely a meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Some information for this report was provide by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
