Rare Colorful Lightning Captured Shooting Up Miles From Earth

Matt Growcoot

A nighttime view from space showing the curvature of Earth, a brilliant display of stars, and a red sprite lightning phenomenon circled in red near the horizon. The image captures the contrast between the planet's darkness and the outer atmosphere's glow.

Lightning sprites are a rare phenomenon that is very difficult to capture. However, one decent method is taking a timelapse while onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Of course, most people can’t get access to the flying spaceport 250 miles above Earth. Therefore, we are relying on astronauts to get images of these rare types of lightning that shoot up from the cloud rather than down.

Step forward, then, NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick and photography virtuoso who is up there experiementing with cameras and enthusiastically taking as many images as possible.

Dominick has already captured a red sprite lighting on June 3 off the coast of South Africa. However, he has since captured an even better one near Bangkok, Thailand on July 1.

A bright red and purple vertical streak of light stands out against a starry night sky. The streak, called a sprite, is a type of transient luminous event that occurs high in the atmosphere.
The sprite is estimated to be 30 to 60 miles tall.

The stunning image shows a blue and red firework rising up to 60 miles (100 kilometers). The frame was shared by fellow astronaut and photographer Don Pettit.

“Amazing edge-view of a sprite from the International Space Station by astronaut Matthew Dominick,” writes Pettit. “This excerpt shows a sprite captured at the horizon edge during a nighttime pass over Southeast Asia.”

The frame that Pettit shared was part of a long timelapse put together by Riccardo Rossi (above) with the sprite appearing about 26 seconds into the video for a millisecond.

Dominick himself hasn’t shared the sprite image on his social media but he is shooting so many photos up there that he probably has a hard time keeping up with the editing.

A view of the Earth from space during nighttime, showcasing a vast starry sky and a faintly illuminated horizon. Various multi-color lights and clouds are visible, with a striking red flash emerging from a cloud formation near the horizon.
The original frame.

In a recent interview, both Dominick and Pettit discussed what it is like taking photos in zero gravity.

“The thing about zero-G, you can quickly throw yourself into funny positions and get a really weird angle that you would normally have to get a ladder for,” says Dominick.

“You can get into these funny little spots to get pictures up here… You can get to such cool angles so fast… It’s just so much fun that you can get to these weird angles inside the space station and get incredible photos.”

Image credits: Photographs by Matthew Dominick/NASA.

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