What does lightning look like from space? See stunning photos from NASA astronauts on ISS
But the natural phenomenon is one all but a few select individuals will ever have the chance to see from the vantage of 250 miles in orbit. Fortunately, a few astronauts over the years have been more than willing to generously share a glimpse of crashing lightning as seen from outer space.
And you better believe it looks nothing like what we're used to seeing from the ground.
The latest images of sky-splitting lightning came courtesy of two NASA astronauts who reached the International Space Station together in March after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. In May, Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain posted photos on social media site X of lightning roiling far, far beneath them.
"This is what lightning looks like from the top down," McClain said in a post shared May 21.
Here's a closer look at just what they managed to capture from above Earth's atmosphere.
The images McClain and Ayers shared show electrostatic discharges – in other words, lightning – from above the clouds as they orbited in the International Space Station.
In Ayers' post on X, she said she first observed lightning May 1 while suited up for a spacewalk outside the orbital outpost. She then managed to capture a few photos the next day, which she shared May 5.
"I am so amazed by the view we have up here of our Earth's weather systems," Ayers posted.
While it was unclear what part of Earth the lightning was striking in Ayers' photos, McClain said her images were captured over Alabama and Georgia.
"Fast and furious, but also an incredible sight!" McClain said.
The photos not only reveal the chaotic beauty of lightning, but could provide valuable orbital data to scientists studying the phenomenon back on Earth.
The photos were captured at speeds of 120 frames per second, with the depicted flashes only taking up one frame. The technique was pioneered by veteran NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is renowned for his astral photography.
Pettit, who had arrived in September 2024 for his third and most recent space station stint, departed April 19, 2025, with two cosmonauts before safely landing in Kazakhstan on his 70th birthday.
Ayers and McClain, who also recently made headlines for completing a rare all-female spacewalk, are among seven people living at the International Space Station.
The crew of Expedition 73 includes three Americans, three Russian cosmonauts and one Japanese spacefarer from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa.)
McClain and Ayers are both part of a SpaceX mission known as Crew-10 that reached the space station in March 2025. Their arrival with JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov paved the way for the NASA astronauts who crewed the doomed Boeing Starliner to depart with the Crew-9 mission.
Also at the station is NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who reached the outpost in April 2025 with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Images: Lightning in space from NASA astronauts on ISS
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
How synthetic lichens can launch Martian construction
This story was originally published on Construction Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Construction Dive newsletter. As NASA continues its preparations to land a human on the moon via its Artemis program, new research points to the possibility of building on the surface of not just the moon, but also Mars. A research team has developed a synthetic lichen system that can form building materials with no outside intervention, according to a news release from College Station, Texas-based Texas A&M University. The team was led by Congrui Grace Jin, an assistant professor in the school's Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution. Jin's team developed a synthetic community, or group of lichen species, that makes use of the advantages of those multiple species, according to the release. This system, which could enable autonomous construction on the planet, eliminates the need for external nutrient supplies and could eventually convert biomaterials into ink for 3D printing. For years, NASA has leaned on the private sector to help field solutions that can lead to permanent structures in space. Building in space presents challenges that range from the prohibitive cost of transporting building materials along with the harsh lunar and Martian climates. In this case, the surface of Mars is covered in regolith, which can consist of dust, sand and rocks. But Jin's team believes they've found a way around that. Their system grows with only Martian regolith simulant, air, light and an inorganic liquid medium, according to the release. In other words, no manpower needed. 'We can build a synthetic community by mimicking natural lichens,' Jin said in the news release. 'We've developed a way to build synthetic lichens to create biomaterials that glue Martian regolith particles into structures. Then, through 3D printing, a wide range of structures can be fabricated, such as buildings, houses and furniture.' That next step — using this regolith ink to print bio-structures using the 3D printing technique of direct ink writing — is already underway, according to the release. 'The potential of this self-growing technology in enabling long-term extraterrestrial exploration and colonization is significant,' Jin said. The study was funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program and recently published in the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. Recommended Reading GSA program to test 20 emerging technologies Sign in to access your portfolio
American Military News
an hour ago
- American Military News
Ukrainians Turn Soviet Van Into Modern Warfare Tool To Fight Russian Drones
This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission. A clunky Soviet-designed off-road van, has become a tool of modern warfare for Ukrainian soldiers. The Bukhanka, the Russian word for a loaf of bread, may be one of the oldest in-production vehicle designs in the world, but a retrofitted version with a modern electronic warfare system is playing a key role in frontline survival in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Performing its 21st Century call of duty, the vehicle scans the skies for Russian drones, alerting troops of the 68th Jaeger Brigade near Pokrovsk and even intercepting camera feeds being sent back to Russian soldiers. For Yuriy and other soldiers in his brigade, the van and its technology are a life saver. 'If we can see what the drone sees, we can get out before it hits,' he explains as the van is quickly camouflaged to avoid enemy surveillance or kamikaze drones once it arrives in support of the troops. The Pokrovsk sector has become one of the hottest war zones along the front line in Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. The vehicle travels down a road lined with netting, including overhead, to ward off incoming drones. But the netting offers limited protection. 'You're lucky none is flying right now,' says Andriy, an artilleryman. 'At night, it's two or three drones overhead, and then glide bombs. It's a concert starting at 9 p.m.' Andriy's story reflects the broader wartime shift many have endured. Before the full-scale invasion, he worked across Europe, repairing cars in Germany, milking cows in Denmark. After Russia invaded in February 2022, he volunteered to defend Ukraine. Even after being wounded, he refused to leave his unit. 'Here, everything is clear. You know what to do,' he says. Our interview is interrupted as the brigade receives an order to fire. A short circuit delays the self-propelled artillery system, but the crew resolves it in minutes, fires on the target, and immediately moves to a shelter to wait for the likely Russian response. According to Ukraine's General Staff, Pokrovsk is currently experiencing the most intense Russian assault activity of any frontline sector. 'Firing is one thing, return fire? That's when it gets intense,' says one soldier. The Bukhanka may have been around since 1965, but it arrived just in time for Yuriy, Andriy, and their Ukrainian colleagues.
Vox
2 hours ago
- Vox
Heart attacks aren't as fatal as they used to be
is a senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate teams and the Unexplainable and The Gray Area podcasts. He is also the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section and writes the Good News newsletter. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk. A day before my 47th birthday last month, I took the subway to Manhattan's Upper East Side for a coronary artery calcium scan (CAC). For those who haven't entered the valley of middle age, a CAC is a specialized CT scan that looks for calcium deposits in the heart and its arteries. Unlike in your bones, having calcium in your coronary arteries is a bad thing, because it indicates the buildup of plaque comprised of cholesterol, fat, and other lovely things. The higher the calcium score, the more plaque that has built up — and with it, the higher the risk of heart disease and even heart attacks. A couple of hours after the test, I received a ping on my phone. My CAC score was 7, which indicated the presence of a small amount of calcified plaque, which translates to a 'low but non-zero cardiovascular risk.' Put another way, according to one calculator, it means an approximately 2.1 percent chance of a major adverse cardiovascular event over the next 10 years. 2.1 percent doesn't sound high — it's a little higher than the chance of pulling an ace of spades from a card deck — but when it comes to major adverse cardiovascular events, 2.1 percent is approximately 100 percent higher than I'd like. That's how I found myself joining the tens of millions of Americans who are currently on statin drugs, which lower levels of LDL cholesterol (aka the 'bad' cholesterol). I didn't really want to celebrate my birthday with a numerical reminder of my creeping mortality. But everything about my experience — from the high-tech calcium scan to my doctor's aggressive statin prescription — explains how the US has made amazing progress against one of our biggest health risks: heart disease, and especially, heart attacks. A dramatic drop in heart attack deaths A heart attack — which usually occurs when atherosclerotic plaque partially or fully blocks the flow of blood to the heart — used to be close to a death sentence. In 1963, the death rate from coronary heart disease, which includes heart attacks, peaked in the US, with 290 deaths per 100,000 population. As late as 1970, a man over 65 who was hospitalized with a heart attack had only a 60 percent chance of ever leaving that hospital alive. A sudden cardiac death is the disease equivalent of homicide or a car crash death. It meant someone's father or husband, wife or mother, was suddenly ripped away without warning. Heart attacks were terrifying. Yet today, that risk is much less. According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the proportion of all deaths attributable to heart attacks plummeted by nearly 90 percent between 1970 and 2022. Over the same period, heart disease as a cause of all adult deaths in the US fell from 41 percent to 24 percent. Today, if a man over 65 is hospitalized with a heart attack, he has a 90 percent chance of leaving the hospital alive. By my calculations, the improvements in preventing and treating heart attacks between 1970 and 2022 have likely saved tens of millions of lives. So how did we get here? How to save a life In 1964, the year after the coronary heart disease death rate peaked, the US surgeon general released a landmark report on the risks of smoking. It marked the start of a decades-long public health campaign against one of the biggest contributing factors to cardiovascular disease. That campaign has been incredibly successful. In 1970, an estimated 40 percent of Americans smoked. By 2019, that percentage had fallen to 14 percent, and it keeps declining. The reduction in smoking has helped lower the number of Americans at risk of a heart attack. So did the development and spread in the 1980s of statins like I'm on now, which make it far easier to manage cholesterol and prevent heart disease. By one estimate, statins save nearly 2 million lives globally each year. When heart attacks do occur, the widespread adoption of CPR and the development of portable defibrillators — which only began to become common in the late 1960s — ensured that more people survived long enough to make it to the hospital. Once there, the development of specialized coronary care units, balloon angioplasty and artery-opening stents made it easier for doctors to rescue a patient suffering an acute cardiac event. Our changing heart health deaths Despite this progress in stopping heart attacks, around 700,000 Americans still die of all forms of heart disease every year, equivalent to 1 in 5 deaths overall. Some of this is the unintended result of our medical success. As more patients survive acute heart attacks and life expectancy has risen as a whole, it means more people are living long enough to become vulnerable to other, more chronic forms of heart disease, like heart failure and pulmonary-related heart conditions. While the decline in smoking has reduced a major risk factor for heart disease, Americans are in many other ways much less healthy than they were 50 years ago. The increasing prevalence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and sedentary behavior all raise the risk that more Americans will develop some form of potentially fatal heart disease down the line. Here, GLP-1 inhibitors like Ozempic hold amazing potential to reduce heart disease's toll. One study found that obese or overweight patients who took a GLP-1 inhibitor for more than three years had a 20 percent lower risk of heart attack, stroke, or death due to cardiovascular disease. Statins have saved millions of lives, yet tens of millions more Americans could likely benefit from taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs, especially women, minorities, and people in rural areas. Lastly, far more Americans could benefit from the kind of advanced screening I received. Only about 1.5 million Americans received a CAC test in 2017, but clinical guidelines indicate that more than 30 million people could benefit from such scans. Just as it is with cancer, getting ahead of heart disease is the best way to stay healthy. It's an astounding accomplishment to have reduced deaths from heart attacks by 90 percent over the past 50-plus years. But even better would be preventing more of us from ever getting to the cardiac brink at all. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!
