There was a lot of curiosity following a mystery flare that lit up the skies over Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. A NASA satellite may have been falling to Earth, according to officials in Kiev, but the US space agency told the BBC that the satellite was still in orbit.

The flash was speculated to have been a meteorite by the Ukrainian air force. Whatever it was, the air force appeared assured it wasn't the result of a Russian air attack, an occurrence that has become all too common since the invasion last year.

Around 22:00 (19:00 GMT), the dazzling glow was seen in the sky above the nation's capital. Although an air raid alert was raised, Serhiy Popko, the commander of Kyiv's military administration, stated on Telegram that "air defense was not in operation."

According to early reports, a NASA space satellite fell to Earth and caused the event,  Popko claimed. Earlier this week, the US space agency had revealed that a retired satellite weighing 660 pounds (300 kg) would re-enter the atmosphere on Wednesday.

In order to investigate solar flares, the RHESSI spacecraft was launched into low-Earth orbit in 2002 and decommissioned in 2018, according to Nasa. The satellite, however, was still in orbit when the explosion was seen, and Rob Margetta from NASA's Office of Communications told the BBC that it will re-enter Earth's atmosphere throughout the night.

He said that RHESSI was still being tracked by NASA and the US Defense Department. Theories and jokes about what the flash could have been have proliferated on Ukrainian social media, with aliens being a common subject.