Astronaut Captures Lightning Strike as You've Never Seen Before—From Space

A "phenomenal" view of lightning striking between clouds has been captured from space.

The incredible sighting was shared in an Instagram video posted by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen (@ astro_andreas). The footage has had more than 133,000 views since it was posted six days ago. The Danish commander of the International Space Station (ISS) returned to the satellite in August 2023 for the six month-long Huginn mission, his second space mission.

The latest video begins with a view of a pitch-black night sky before flashes of light appear that reveal the patches of white clouds on the screen. Streaks of lightning are shown appearing horizontally between the clouds.

A caption shared with the post reads: "In one of my final sessions with the Thor-Davis experiment I captured this giant lightning strike that appears to strike between clouds - something that is more common than lightning striking Earth. I had it slowed down a few times so you can really see the scale of it. The 'stars' you see in the video are dead pixels in the camera."

The Thor-Davis experiment "investigates lightning in the upper atmosphere and how it might affect the concentration of greenhouse gasses," says the ESA.

The latest experiment builds upon the previous Thor experiment from Mogensen's first mission to the ISS in September 2015, which made him the first Danish citizen in space.

During his first mission, Mogensen also captured images of a different type of thunder event known as a blue jet; these are blue flashes that shoot upwards from the tops of thunderstorms toward the edge of space.

How Does Lightning Form?

Lightning is a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere that can occur between clouds, the air or the ground.

It is one of the oldest-observed natural phenomena on Earth and can be seen in various natural events; from volcanic eruptions and extremely intense forest fires to heavy snowstorms, in large hurricanes, and thunderstorms.

Lightning can occur between opposite charges within a thunderstorm cloud (intra-cloud lightning) or between opposite charges in the cloud and on the ground (cloud-to-ground lightning).

"Most, if not all, lightning flashes produced by storms start inside the cloud," says the U.S. National Severe Storms Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

How lightning is created is a "complicated process," says the NOAA. It adds that "we generally know what conditions are needed to produce lightning, but there is still debate about exactly how a cloud builds up electrical charges, and how lightning forms."

Scientists think believe that the initial process for creating charge regions in thunderstorms involves small hail particles known as graupel that are around one quarter millimeter to a few millimeters in diameter.

"When these graupel particles collide and bounce off of smaller ice particles, the graupel gains one sign of charge and the smaller ice particle gains the other sign of charge," the NOAA says.

'Phenomenal'

A caption shared with the latest post from Mogensen reads: "Throughout my mission I have have the opportunity to sit in the Cupola [an ESA-built observatory module], both for science with the two Thor-Davis and EarthShine experiments...and in my spare time. It is a marvelous view I have from up here and I have tried to give a taste of it through these posts."

User on Instagram were blown away by the latest viral clip, such as sandyrederweis who wrote "phenomenal, thank you for sharing it to us."

"That's wow but i would have passed out in space for being scared of the lightning," posted anapriscilamz.

User patiendter simply wrote, "WOW," and pia.thomsen.754 added: "Awesome."

"Excellent! safe travels back to Earth," noted jayjum.

Newsweek has reached out to Mogensen for comment via Instagram and via the ESA by email.

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