2017-01-10 07:06:51

Meetings: An Astronaut’s View of Thunderstorms

Videos of thunderstorms recorded from space reveal unexpectedly active lightning in the sky above storm clouds.
ESA/NASA/IRISS/DTU
Photograph of a thunderstorm taken by astronaut Andreas Mogensen from the International Space Station (ISS). The storm occurred over East India on September 8th, 2015. The edge of the Soyuz launcher attached to the ISS is also visible.

When a thunderstorm rolls in, we’re treated to a spectacle of bright white flashes followed by deafening cracks. But what is going on above the storm clouds? To find out, scientists teamed up with Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who photographed storms raging over California, East India, Thailand, and Costa Rica from his perch several hundred thousand meters above Earth on the International Space Station (ISS). Pictures of the East Indian storm, which revealed far more lightning than expected, were presented in December 2016 at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco...more http://physics.aps.org/articles/v10/1