As she flew 400 km above Earth at hypersonic speed, NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps caught a gigantic spark with blue and red flashes shooting upwards.  

This video shows a blue jet propagating into space towards the upper layers of the atmosphere. The beam of light is followed by red flashes spreading like tentacles across the sky.  

You can watch the magnificent show at different speeds, but in reality, it lasted less than a second.  

Jeanette directed a high-resolution camera from the International Space Station towards a summer thunderstorm. With the camera set at the fastest frame rate for slow-motion video, she managed to record the giant jet in all its splendour.   

What the astronaut captured from orbit in July 2024 is rarely visible on Earth because it takes place above the clouds, at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. This powerful yet elusive electrical phenomenon is known as a Transient Luminous Event (TLE). 

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen captured the first pulsating jet from space a decade ago, providing a new perspective on electrical activity at the top of thunderstorms. Scientists began to learn what types of clouds trigger such phenomena and how they impact the chemistry of the atmosphere. 

Her recording is part of the Thor-Davis experiment designed to investigate lightning in the upper atmosphere and how it might affect the concentration of greenhouse gases. The experiment is called Thor after the god of thunder, lightning and storms in Nordic mythology, and is led by the Danish Technical University (DTU) together with ESA. 

Lightning triggers powerful electrical bursts in our atmosphere almost every second, yet the inner workings of these forces of nature are still not fully understood. Capturing such phenomena is vital for scientists researching Earth’s weather systems.