A mysterious blue flash over Europe. Remarkable photo from the International Space Station

On October 8, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet published a photo aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in which he captured something extraordinary over Europe. The photograph is a single frame of longer material and shows a blue glow that could look like a mysterious explosion over our continent. In fact, the blue “object” in the sky did no harm and was almost invisible to people on Earth. This is called transient light event – a rare lightning-like phenomenon that affects the upper atmosphere. Thomas Pesquet accurately captured the lightning strike in the upper atmosphere. These types of flashes are extremely difficult to photograph from Earth. They are very high in the sky and are mostly obscured by storm clouds. The flare itself lasts milliseconds or literally a few seconds. The best place to observe such phenomena is the International Space Station, which additionally has a special device for their …

expand—