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A bright flashing light in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 19, 2023. /Reuters
A bright flash seen over Ukraine's capital Kyiv was probably a meteorite, Ukraine's space agency said Thursday.
Video clips posted on social media showed the sky over the Ukrainian capital suddenly illuminated by a bright light late on Wednesday. In one clip, a flaming object appeared to be crashing to the ground.
The flash of light has led to widespread confusion and public speculation over what caused it, and jokes about space aliens.
Kyiv authorities said an unknown aerial object had fallen from the sky at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday, forcing them to announce an air alert in Kyiv and the surrounding region. Initial alarm gave way to questions about what had happened, which remained unanswered the next morning.
One theory, that the flash was caused by a falling United States satellite, was ruled out by the country's space agency NASA, saying that the satellite was "still in orbit" at the time the flash was observed.
The space agency later released the satellite reentering the atmosphere over Africa's Sahara Desert region.
"We cannot identify what it was exactly, but our assumption is that it was a meteorite," Igor Korniyenko, the deputy head of a control center at Ukraine's national space agency said Thursday.
However, he added that there was not sufficient data to determine "the exact nature" of what might have caused the flash.
(Cover: CCTV footage shows a bright flashing light in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 19, 2023. /Reuters)
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Disinformation report hotline: 010-85061466