I saw a shooting star a couple of nights ago. Is this a rare thing to see?

Answer 1

Nope, unless you live in a really big city with lots of light pollution. Shooting stars are common and there are many every night, but often the go unnoticed.

Answer 2

Shooting stars aren't rare at all. The sighting of one, however, can be.
You are more likely to spot one if you live in an area with low pollution, which can obviously cloud the sky. Country and desert areas have cleaner air and brighter skies.
A shooting star is a meteor racing across the sky. Shooting stars, or meteors, are common any night of the year; five or six per hour are normal.
Note that only the ones that make it across Earth's atmosphere and actually HIT the ground are called Meteorites.
Occasionally the sky explodes in a shower of sparks, a rare meteor "storm" that is something to get excited about.Meteor storms are typically said to involve at least 1,000 meteors per hour, a rate sometimes achieved only in 15-minute bursts. That's an average of 250 meteors per burst, about 17 meteors, or "shooting stars", per minute.

Answer 3

Yes and no. The brighter the shooting star, the rarer it is. In a dark rural area you can see dim ones every night, but one bright enough to see from the city where the sky is not dark enough to even see the Milky Way, it is rare to see any.

Answer 4

Its not really rare at all, if you look at the sky on any clear night you will see a few.

There are certain dates when meteor showers or even meteor storms occur. These are usually associated with short period comets leaving small dust particles in their wake, and Earth's orbit passes through that wake.

At those times the meteors appear to radiate from one particular area of the sky, which is why meteors (showers) have names such as "Perseids" (which radiate from the constellation Perseus) or "Gemenids" whose radiant is the constellation of Gemini.

Most of these are as small as grains of sand, and burn up about 100km above the Earth when they encounter the atmosphere, as these things travel at high velocities, (about 25,000km per hr).

I have seen hundreds of them, but not from the city. So keep your eyes on the sky more often (preferably when stationary)

Answer 5

Afraid not. You might expect to see 4 to 8 shooting stars per hour in September, more in the morning twilight.
Still they are easy to miss, especially in areas with lots of light pollution.

Enjoy!

Answer 6

It's not rare between August 12-14th (Perseids meteor shower) but there was a unique meteor shower visible from the Western USA last week.

Answer 7

That's a relative question.

If you rarely look at the sky, then yes, it's rare.

I used to see shooting stars all the time, when I star gazed, but now I don't see any because I don't star gaze.

Answer 8

yes,you are so rare you are the 18th person on earth saw the shooting star .the sciencetist told me

Answer 9

We always see loads in France. Less light polution. Also saw the Milky Way which was amazing. The kids lay on their backs making wishes!

Answer 10

Not really, but it's cool.... Earth gets pummelled by about 25,000 pieces of debris daily. During non-meteor shower times, you can usually see one (on average) about every 6 minutes where you are.