- Andreas Mogensen grabbed a camera when he saw a thunderstorm approaching
- His incredible photo shows a rare form of lightning, a red sprite
From their position on the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts are treated to a unique view of our planet that most people will never see.
The ISS orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 400 km, meaning the space station makes about 16 trips around the Earth every day.
Now, a European Space Agency astronaut has captured an incredible photo and time-lapse video of a rare lightning phenomenon known as a red sprite.
Andreas Mogensen picked up the space station's Davis camera when he spotted a thunderstorm above Earth.
“Beyond the clouds lies a fascinating world,” he said, posting the photos on X (formerly Twitter).
A European Space Agency astronaut has captured an incredible photo and time-lapse of a rare lightning phenomenon known as a red sprite
Mr. Mogensen has lived on the ISS since August and takes photos of Earth every Saturday from the space station's Cupola
Mr. Mogensen has lived on the ISS since August and takes photos of Earth every Saturday from the space station's Cupola.
Last week, the astronaut managed to capture images of a red sprite above a thundercloud.
“Red sprites are part of the rare phenomena known as Transient Luminous Events, often abbreviated TLEs, which can appear above storm clouds,” Mr. Mogensen explained on X.
'The red sprites form about 40 to 80 km [24 to 48 miles] above the ground and as you can see in the video from the Davis camera the red sprites appear after the thunder has struck and much higher up.”
Red sprites are electrical bursts of light that occur above very active thunderstorms.
They can be seen in the D region of the ionosphere – the region just above the dense lower atmosphere, about 60 to 90 kilometers above Earth.
They appear red at higher altitudes and fade to blue at lower altitudes.
Because red streaks form above thunderclouds, they are not easy to study from the ground and are usually seen from space.
From their position on the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts are treated to a unique view of our planet that most people will never see
Red sprites are electrical bursts of light that occur above very active thunderstorms
The ISS's Davis camera is an event camera, which works like the human eye. detecting changes in contrast instead of capturing an image like a regular camera.
“These images taken by Andreas are fantastic,” says Olivier Chanrion, lead scientist for this experiment and senior researcher at DTU Space.
'The Davis camera works well and gives us the high temporal resolution needed to capture the rapid processes in lightning.'
The new photo comes eight years after Mogensen's first mission to the ISS, when he captured images of another thunder event shooting into space: a blue jet.
“This brings back memories of the blue plane I captured on camera during my first mission in 2015,” he added.
The new photo comes eight years after Mogensen's first mission to the ISS, when he captured images of another thunder event rocketing into space: a blue jet (pictured)