NASA satellite crash: what was bright flash of light over Kyiv - was it a meteorite?

A mysterious flashing light was observed by locals in the skies of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, prompting great confusion amongst locals on Wednesday night (19 April).

Officials in Kyiv initially suspected that the flashing light was caused by a NASA satellite falling to earth, but these claims have since been rebuked by the US space agency who confirmed that their satellite was still in orbit. Ukrainian air forces are also confident that the light was not caused by an air attack, amid the ongoing conflict with Russia.

The bright glow was spotted in the sky over the capital at around 10 pm local time. But what was the bright flash of light over Kyiv and what has NASA said about the incident? Here is everything you need to know.

What happened in Kyiv?

A number of Ukrainian residents have reported seeing an enormous flash of light which soared through the night sky on Wednesday (19 April) evening, illuminating the city below. The flash appeared just minutes before an air raid siren sounded a warning of a possible Russian attack - however no rockets or drones were spotted and officials confirmed that air defences did not fire.

The event was captured by one resident’s home surveillance cameras on Twitter. They wrote: “Average evening in Kyiv is when you got Shahed Drones incoming and a NASA satellite falls somewhere nearby.”

What’s been said?

NASA confirmed that the strange flash of light seen over Kyiv was not caused by one of the space agency’s satellites, as has been claimed by Ukraine’s military administration. Serhii Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration said: “According to preliminary information this phenomenon was a result of the NASA space satellite falling to Earth.”

However, NASA’s Office of Communications explained that the satellite was still in orbit at the time that the flash was reported from Ukraine. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell tweeted that the bright flash seen over Kyiv had “nothing to do with the reentry of Nasa’s RHESSI satellite”.

RHESSI stands for “Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager”.

McDowell claimed the satellite’s orbit does not come within even “thousands of kilometres of Ukraine’’, making it impossible for RHESSI to enter Kyiv. He added: “RHESSI orbit did not pass over Ukraine at all.”

The astronomer explained that the NASA satellites re-entry to Earth followed a route through South America, Northern Africa, Central Asia and China. On Monday (17 April), NASA had announced that it would be bringing the retired satellite RHESSI out of orbit. It was originally sent into orbit in 2002 to study the sun.

According to NASA, “during its mission tenure, RHESSI recorded more than 100,000 X-ray events, allowing scientists to study the energetic particles in solar flares”. It added that “the imager helped researchers determine the particles’ frequency, location, and movement, which helped them understand where the particles were being accelerated”.

The 300kg spacecraft was set to rocket through the earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday night. While most of the satellite would burn up, some parts were expected to survive the fall. NASA has confirmed that RHESSI was still in orbit at the time of the flash, and was therefore not the cause of the strange occurrence.