5471496

An astronaut captured the first video from the International Space Station (ISS) ofmysterious electrical discharges dubbed blue jets.

NASA is cooperating with the European Space Agency (ESA) to take pictures and video of the jets from the ISS using special cameras. The strange flashes can be more than half a mile wide and typically occur about 11 to 12 miles above the ground. They appear to be a strange weather phenomenon that hasnt been fully explained.

It is not every day that you get to capture a new weather phenomenon on film, so I am very pleased with the result but even more so that researchers will be able to investigate these intriguing thunderstorms in more detail soon,Andreas Mogensen, an ESA astronaut who filmed the jets from the ISS, said in a press statement.

WATCH: Satellites have previously attemptedto study the blue jets, but their viewing angle was not ideal.The ISS sits in a much lower orbit around Earth than most satellites, making it an ideal place to studythe jets.

NASA suspects that the blue jets are examples of a little-understood part of our atmosphere interacting with electrical storms. The research has implications for how our atmosphere protects Earth from radiation.

Follow Andrew on Twitter

Send tips to andrew@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Read more here:

NASA Can't Explain Mysterious 'Blue Jet' Spotted Near Space Station [VIDEO] - Daily Caller