NASA Astronaut Shares Stunning View Of Lightning Strikes On Earth From Space

One of the most powerful displays of nature, lightning storms can be a true spectacle to look at. The surge of electric bolts striking earth from thunderous dark clouds are nature's own natural flash lights, or so we were told when we were kids.

However mesmerizing and dangerous a lightning strike may appear here on earth, no sighting of such a thunderstorm can beat the way lightning strikes appear from space.

NASA / Bob Behnken

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Bob Behnken has made sure we get a chance to know just that -- see what a lightning storm looks like from space.

Having gone on the International Space Station on the recent SpaceX flight that gained headlines, Bob Behnken has now shared a stunning video of lightning strikes on Earth, captured from space.

Shared in a tweet by Bob Behnken, the nine-second video shows beautiful violet lightning fringes appearing in dense moving clouds from up above. Describing the video, Bob writes - "Lightning from above. The violet fringes are mesmerizing."

Lightning from above. The violet fringes are mesmerizing. pic.twitter.com/eLCGMTbfTY

¡ª Bob Behnken (@AstroBehnken) July 21, 2020

Shared early on Wednesday, the lightning video from space has already garnered over 1 lakh views on Twitter and the Twitterati is obviously going gaga over it.

Many have expressed their excitement over the video in response. Some, like Just Steve even became nostalgic, writing ¡°I've loved thunderstorms since I was a small child. I would watch from the window, and cry when they stopped!¡±

Just Steve/ Twitter

¡°I've been lucky enough to see some amazing storms, including experiencing a ground strike less than a mile away (bit too close TBH!), but the view from space beats all!,¡± Steve added.

Others like Ascend Kid took this as an opportunity to point out how humankind should work towards harnessing this energy from thunderstorms, possibly using graphene.

Earth pics from space

(Representative Image: Reuters)

Since his arrival at the International Space Station, Bob has been sharing such mesmerizing views of earth and earth-bound natural phenomenon for all of us to see and enjoy. Prior to the lightning one, Bob Behnken shared an image marking the difference between day and night on Earth, in a single image.

Just like the view of the lightning from up above, the photograph clearly showing day on half part of the planet and night on the other, was a beauty to look at.

Whether of earthly phenomena or of celestial ones, seems like everything looks a tad bit better from space. So that¡¯s plus one for the Astronauts over Instagrammers here on Earth.