'It was quite a light show!' NASA astronaut spies dramatic fireball from the International Space Station (photos)

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On the International Space Station, you look down to see shooting stars.

NASA astronaut Chris Williams just reminded us of that mind-bending fact, sharing footage of a spectacular fireball he saw from the orbiting lab.

"On April 27th at about 10:40 PM GMT, I was in the @Space_Station Cupola and saw something really neat.I was scanning the sky to try to catch a glimpse of the approaching Progress MS-34 vehicle bringing new supplies," Williams said via X on Thursday (April 30), in a post that featured three photos and a short video.

On April 27th at about 10:40 PM GMT, I was in the @Space_Station Cupola and saw something really neat. I was scanning the sky to try to catch a glimpse of the approaching Progress MS-34 vehicle bringing new supplies. Just as we were passing over West Africa, I saw a bright… pic.twitter.com/5hgtCnC6XBApril 30, 2026

"Just as we were passing over West Africa, I saw a bright object directly below us, streaking through the upper atmosphere," he added. "I saw its tail grow and then split apart into a shower of smaller pieces. I think it must have been some piece of orbital debris or a satellite breaking up as it entered the atmosphere. It was quite a light show!"

Progress MS-34, also known as Progress 95, launched on Saturday (April 25) and arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) two days later, delivering about three tons of food, supplies and scientific experiments. The cargo vehicle will stay attached to the station for about seven months, then depart to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Interestingly, the fireball that Williams saw may have been caused by the Progress launch: The upper stage of the Soyuz rocket that carried Progress 95 to orbit apparently reentered at the right time and place to generate the sky show.

Williams is a rookie spaceflyer serving an eight-month stint aboard the ISS. He arrived at the orbiting lab on Nov. 27 aboard a Soyuz spacecraft that also carried two cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.

The trio is sharing the station with the four astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-12 mission for NASA, which launched on Feb. 13. That quartet consists of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

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Michael Wall is the Spaceflight and Tech Editor for Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers human and robotic spaceflight, military space, and exoplanets, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.