NASA Astronauts Showed What Lightning Looks Like From Space

Lightning storms look different when you’re floating 250 miles above Earth. Instead of bolts streaking past your window, they pulse in perfect silence—quick, glowing bursts that seem to breathe inside the clouds.

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole “Vapor” Ayers just posted new images of lightning captured from the International Space Station. Using a rapid-fire camera technique developed by astronaut Don Pettit, they recorded flashes at 120 frames per second—each one visible for a single frame, gone in an instant.

“Fast and furious,” McClain wrote. “But also an incredible sight.”

You may have heard me comment on the lightning storm beneath us as we got back into the airlock on Thursday.

I am so amazed by the view we have up here of our Earth’s weather systems – some of which are so big they even caught my eye on our spacewalk!

The very next day, I was… pic.twitter.com/Dh49EULQi8

— Nichole “Vapor” Ayers (@Astro_Ayers) May 5, 2025

From orbit, lightning lights up the sky in ways we can’t experience from the ground. “This is what lightning looks like from the top down,” McClain wrote, noting the images were captured over Alabama and Georgia. She credited Ayers for passing along the photo technique, first developed by astronaut Don Pettit and refined during training sessions aboard the ISS.

Ayers described spotting the same storm during a spacewalk. “Some of [the systems] are so big they even caught my eye on our spacewalk,” she wrote. “The very next day, I was able to capture a few pictures of lightning from our window in the lab. The colors are mesmerizing.”

This is what lightning looks like from the top down, all taken in the Alabama and Georgia regions. @astro_Pettit developed this photo technique, which was further practiced and passed on to me by my crewmate @Astro_Ayers.

The photos are taken at 120 frames per second, and the… pic.twitter.com/HVbVT0OQNY

— COL Anne McClain (@AstroAnnimal) May 21, 2025

Astronauts Showed What Lightning Looks Like From the International Space Station

That top-down perspective changes what we know about storms. Blue jets—electrical discharges that shoot upward into the stratosphere—weren’t confirmed until astronauts and satellites started capturing them from above. Lightning has also been linked to sudden bursts of high-energy electrons that launch toward space, something scientists are still trying to understand.

These images help fill in the blanks. They offer clues about how storms evolve, how energy moves through the atmosphere, and how weather on Earth touches the edge of space. But not every photo is about data. Sometimes, astronauts take pictures simply because they can—because they’re up there, and the view is wild. These images offer a rare look at something familiar, seen from a place most of us will never stand.

There’s something haunting about watching lightning bloom beneath you, color spilling across the clouds without a sound. It’s the same weather we live with every day—but from up there, it looks like Earth showing off.