Space and Physics
PUBLISHED
NASA has said a mysterious flash over Kyiv, Ukraine, was not the result of their Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) satellite falling to Earth.
On Wednesday night, a bright flash was seen in the sky over the city, prompting an air raid alert.
The head of Kyiv's military administration, Serhiy Popko, speculated on Telegram, as reported by the BBC, that the flash could have been caused by the retired NASA satellite, which was due to re-enter our atmosphere and crash down to Earth on Wednesday around 8:50 pm EDT.
NASA told the BBC that the satellite was still in orbit as the flash was seen over Kyiv, ruling it out as the cause. The Ukrainian space agency and air force have since said that the object was probably a meteorite.
It's not yet known where the RHESSI satellite fell, though most of it is expected to burn up as it re-enters the atmosphere. Ahead of the re-entry, NASA put the chances of the satellite causing harm to anyone as low, at approximately 1 in 2,467.
