Skyfire Spectacle: Lightning Unleashed Over Türkiye

Flashes of light illuminated the textures of cloud tops during a nighttime storm over the region.

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this photograph of a thunderstorm at night over western Türkiye. The image highlights two distinct lightning flash areas, one southeast of the city of İzmir and the other north of Aliağa. Using a camera’s time-lapse function and the proper shutter speed, astronauts can capture photos of the bright flashes amidst the clouds while simultaneously documenting nearby nighttime lights from cities and highways.

Unveiling the Night Sky

The image’s high spatial resolution, combined with the temporary illumination of the lightning flash, reveal the cloud textures from above—a unique attribute of astronaut photography of Earth at night. The dark and light patches within the cumulonimbus clouds expose the strong updrafts present in storm cells. In addition to lightning, the image captures the municipal lights from the cities of İzmir, Yelki, and Aliağa bordering the Gulf of İzmir. Storm clouds obscure some of the urban lights toward the eastern side of the gulf.

Advancements in Storm Observation

Remote sensing of nighttime storms has been the focus of several scientific projects aboard the space station. Astronaut imagery has extended our understanding of atmospheric phenomena associated with lightning, including sprites and blue jets. In addition to crew photography of Earth, robotic sensors aboard the station, such as the European Space Agency’s Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), observe these atmospheric phenomena and convective storms. Scientists have also used the data collected by the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) to map lightning strikes and gain insight into lightning dynamics across the planet during both daytime and nighttime storms.

Astronaut photograph ISS070-E-21172 was acquired on November 4, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 85 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 70 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet.

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