Our teacher told us today:

Suppose a satellite is moving around the earth in a circular orbit of radius $r$. Suddenly an external agent stops its motion so that its kinetic energy becomes zero but its gravitational potential energy remains the same. Assume there is no air friction or drag. The satellite starts to fall towards the earth's surface and it will follow an elliptical orbit in its motion towards the earth.

Please tell me if this is correct because according to my intuition it should follow a straight-line trajectory towards the earth.

Please help me with this. I am not very good at English so pardon me for any grammatical mistakes in my question.