ISS Astronaut Shares Photo of Rare Lightning Flash

Isabella James, Tech Times 10 October 2021, 09:10 pm

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has shared a photo of a rare lightning flash taken from space.

Thomas Pesquet, an astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA), described the rare lightning flash as a "transient luminous event."

Due to its strategic location, astronauts residing in the ISS have witnessed awe-inspiring phenomena in space as well as something as simple and mundane as planes flying above islands. Many astronauts through the years have captured these events in photos.

ISS Astronaut Snaps Photo of Rare Lightning Flash

🌩A single frame from a timelapse over #Europe, showing a transient luminous event in the upper atmosphere! We have a 🇩🇰-led facility monitoring these events thanks in part to @Astro_Andreas who took the first picture of them from space! ⚡ https://t.co/tfFS3KqYmm #MissionAlpha pic.twitter.com/XqBdJ64pBq
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) October 7, 2021

An astronaut who is currently in the ISS has tweeted a photo he took of a rare lightning flash that was taken from space.

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared the image on Twitter and called it a "transient luminous event." Pesquet also mentioned fellow ESA astronaut Andreas Morgensen "who took the first picture of them from space!"

According to a report by CNET, the transient luminous event snapped in the photo is "caused by upper-atmospheric lightning."

Mission Alpha

The end of Pesquet's tweet features the hashtag #MissionAlpha. Mission Alpha is actually Pesquet's second mission, according to the ESA. Pesquet was launched back to the ISS on April 23, 2021, along with three other astronauts.

These three astronauts are Aki Hoshide, Megan MacArthur, and Shane Kimbrough. Kimbrough was previously with Pesquet during the latter's first mission, known as the Proxima.

The four astronauts were launched to space by SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft.

ISS Astronauts Taking Photos From Space

Because of its strategic location, the astronauts residing in the ISS have managed to take some spectacular photos from space.

An example of which are the photos of the aurora borealis snapped in 2016 by British astronaut Tim Peake and American Astronaut Scott Kelly. Kelly snapped his photo in January of that year, while Peake shot his photo a month after.

Astronauts have also taken photos of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft as well as an airplane in the middle of flying over the Bahamas.

There are also times that astronauts aboard the ISS have been able to capture events that are occurring on the surface of Earth. An example of that is a photo taken in 2014 of the Gaza war zone.

The photo was taken by astronaut Alexander Gerst, who was a crew member of the Expedition 40/41.

According to a previous report by Tech Times, Gerst said, ""[I]f we ever will be visited by another species from somewhere in the universe, how would we explain to them what they might see as the very first thing when they look at our planet?"

"How would we explain to them the way we humans treat not only each other but also our fragile blue planet, the only home we have? I do not have an answer for that," Gerst added.

Also Read: ISS Astronaut Tweets 'Saddest Photo Yet' - Capturing Gaza War Zone From Space

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Isabella James