Traveling over west Africa at 8 kilometers per second in the International Space Station, astronaut Andr Kuipers took this eerie and lovely picture of a storm cloud just as it was illuminated by a lightning stroke: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
[Click to enlighten yourself.] <\/p>\n
Wow. This is easily as cool as another amazing shot of a lightning-illuminated cloud over Brazil taken from space in 2011, too. <\/p>\n
And hmmmm. Scientists have detected gamma rays extremely high-energy light presumably generated by lightning storms and shooting straight up into space. I hope nothing makes Andr stressed any time soon. The ISS is no place for him to Hulk out! <\/p>\n
[P.S. Before anyone asks -- and as much as I hate to explain a joke, I guess I really should in this case -- the gamma rays emitted by lightning storms are extremely weak, and not a danger to the astronauts.] <\/p>\n
Credit: ESA\/NASA <\/p>\n
Related Posts: <\/p>\n
- The softly glowing night sky - Buenos noches - Rocky Mountain (very) high - Astronaut opens up the window to see the Moon rise <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The rest is here:<\/p>\n
Looking down into the throat of a lightning storm | Bad Astronomy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Traveling over west Africa at 8 kilometers per second in the International Space Station, astronaut Andr Kuipers took this eerie and lovely picture of a storm cloud just as it was illuminated by a lightning stroke: [Click to enlighten yourself.] Wow. This is easily as cool as another amazing shot of a lightning-illuminated cloud over Brazil taken from space in 2011, too. And hmmmm. Continue reading