On the night of April 19, residents of Ukraine witnessed a large, bright object falling from the sky, triggering air raid alerts in the capital city of Kiev and the eastern regions of the country.
Image of the bright object falling in Kiev. (screengrab from video).
The newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported preliminary findings from the Ukrainian Air Force Command and the military administration of Kiev, indicating that the bright object was a satellite from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Mr. Serhiy Popko, head of the military administration of Kiev, announced: “Around 10 PM on April 19, a brilliant light from an aerial object appeared in the sky over Kiev. Preliminary reports suggest that this is a NASA satellite falling to Earth.”
Mr. Popko further stated that local authorities issued air raid warnings in Eastern Ukraine and the city of Kiev to prevent casualties from falling debris, although no air defense forces were deployed in Kiev.
Previously, Space.com reported that a malfunctioning NASA satellite was expected to crash to Earth between April 19 and 20. The RHESSI satellite, which has been surveying the Sun since 2002, ceased operations in 2018. It was anticipated that RHESSI would re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on the morning of April 20. Weighing only 270 kg, most of the satellite was expected to burn up during its descent.
However, the non-profit space education project Alpha Centauri in Ukraine asserted that the object was not NASA’s RHESSI satellite, as its predicted re-entry trajectory was far from the country.
Instead, Alpha Centauri suggested that the flying object was a meteorite from outer space.
