Do astronauts see shooting stars?
Yes. Astronauts on the International Space Station look down on shooting stars, seeing them glow in the air below them.
Astronauts on the International Space Station live about 400 kilometres above Earth. Shooting stars glow at about 80 to 120 kilometres up, so from the space station, astronauts are looking down on them, not up!
Astronauts have photographed meteors streaking through the atmosphere far below, looking like little sparks against the dark night side of Earth. During the Perseid meteor shower in 2011, an astronaut took a famous photograph of a Perseid seen from above. It is a view of shooting stars that very few people have ever had.
The space station itself is also bumped by tiny bits of space dust and human-made debris. Most are microscopic and do no harm, but a few leave small chips on the windows. The station has special shields to protect it, a bit like a bulletproof vest made of layers of metal and fabric. If a bigger piece of debris is coming, the station can even move out of the way using its engines.
Astronauts sometimes say that seeing Earth from space, with its thin glowing layer of air, makes them realise how precious our atmosphere is. It protects us from almost all the space rocks heading our way.