A dark sky lights up whenever lightning strikes at night, like the sudden burst of the flash of a camera. On daytime, the streak of light is visible with its backdrop of gray clouds.
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so lightning is visible when it strikes. Thunder typically follows, but the time-gap between the two varies. If the time that passed before thunder rumbled was 15 seconds, chances are the lightning is three miles away.
Here on Earth, it's a majestic feeling to photograph or catch lightnings on video, but how do flashes of lightning appear from space?
British astronaut Tim Peake, who is now on a six-month mission at the International Space Station, shared the answer on Twitter.
In a timelapse video, the view from the ISS shows the curve of the Earth's horizon below. As the video progresses, the view also moves from one point to another.
A few seconds in, crackles of white light are seen moving on different points in one area. These are lightning strikes.
"Amazing how much lightning can strike our planet in a short time," tweeted Peake.
The timelapse video covers a span of the planet beginning from North Africa, moving to Turkey on the way to Russia.
Last year, the European Space Agency released a video of lightning from 2012. Peake's timelapse video lasts more than the previous one and flies over a chunk of the planet.
Peake arrived at the ISS in December for his Principia mission. He will return to Earth in June.
On his first months at the space station, Peake has already done many things and has been sharing his achievements on social media.
He demonstrated how to make coffee in space. He showed how astronauts typically took a shower. He went on a historic spacewalk with the British flag on his suit and took selfies while doing their task outside the space station. He also tried to call his parents at home, but no one answered because his parents were outside.
On Feb. 2, Peake also participated in a "cosmic classroom" from space. He answered questions given by 25 students from 10 schools in the United Kingdom.
Watch Peake's video below.
Amazing how much lightning can strike our planet in a short time #Principia #timelapsehttps://t.co/XijV5E1pI0
— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) February 9, 2016
