Peake’s Twitter feed is once again dropping jaws thanks to his footage of an environmental phenomenon we rarely see from thousands of miles up in space. As the space station was flying from North Africa over Turkey towards Russia, all in the matter of a few seconds, Peake shot video of lightning storms dotting Earth, and released the time-lapse video below:
Amazing how much lightning can strike our planet in a short time Principia timelapsePeake (@astro_timpeake) February 9, 2016
During the 33-second clip, a barrage of flashes is seen on the horizon. As the ISS roams towards Eastern Europe, the flashes become more intense and centralised and the cloud cover thickens.
As the Daily Mail writes, “More lightning occurs over land than water because the sun heats the land surface faster than the ocean…The heated land surface warms the air above it and that warm air rises to encounter cold air.
Researchers recently found that regardless of where in the world a person is, lightning bolts are at their most powerful at 8am.”
Peake is following in the steps of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield by providing us with glimpses of his space voyage with mesmerizing photos and video. On Sunday afternoon, he posted this short clip of his trip over Italy and the Alps:
Flying over Principia timelapsePeake (@astro_timpeake) February 7, 2016
Peake was launched to the International Space Station (ISS), on December 15 2015, for Expeditions 46 and 47.
