#WATCH: As Kyiv sky lights up, US says meteor, not UFO, not falling NASA satellite

Kyiv: An unidentified flare that lit up the sky over the capital of Ukraine sparked a lot of rumours on Wednesday night.

Around 22:00, a bright glow was seen in the sky above the nation’s capital. (19:00 GMT).

Although an air raid alert was raised, Serhiy Popko, the chief of Kyiv’s military administration, stated on Telegram that “air defence was not in operation.”

Popko speculated that it was caused by a retired 300 kilogramme (660 lb) spacecraft, which the space agency said was scheduled to re-enter the atmosphere on Wednesday, crashing to Earth.

However, according to a BBC report, the US space agency believes the NASA satellite was still in orbit, contrary to what officials in Kyiv initially believed.

Later, according to Ukrainian space officials, the flash was likely caused by a meteorite entering the atmosphere.

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Since the invasion last year, the air force had reason to believe it was not a Russian air attack.

The RHESSI satellite, which was placed into low Earth orbit in 2002 and used to monitor solar flares, was decommissioned in 2018, according to Nasa.

The satellite, however, was still in orbit when the light was seen, and Rob Margetta from NASA’s office of communications informed the BBC that it was scheduled to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere during the night.

The RHESSI satellite was nowhere near Ukraine at the time, according to the satellite tracking website Satflare.

Theories and jokes about what the flash could have been have proliferated on Ukrainian social media, with aliens being a common subject.

The flare was also spotted above Belarus to the north, according to air force spokesperson Yuri Ihnat, and the Ukrainian space agency said it was likely caused by a cosmic body entering the dense layers of the atmosphere.

Officials in Kiev stated that while experts would determine what it was, the security of the city was of utmost importance.

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