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Thunderstorm from space captured in mind-blowing video from ISS

Thunderstorm from space captured in mind-blowing video from ISS

Astronaut Marcus Wandt has shared the incredible footage on X.

We've all seen a thunderstorm or two in our time - but can you imagine what they might look like from space?

Well, one astronaut can - and he's shared the remarkable footage from the International Space Station (ISS) with the world.

The video was uploaded to X (formerly Twitter) by Swedish astronaut Marcus Wandt, and it's a pretty crazy watch.

It shows dark purple swirls of cloud with lightning occasionally illuminating parts of the roiling sky in crackling light, but what's most mind-blowing is the perspective.

Obviously, it's been filmed from space, but the shakiness of the camera and the obvious depth of the clouds make it look almost otherworldly, and you might not know you were looking down at Earth if you weren't told so. You also really get a sense for how big these storms can be - they look like they're covering miles and miles of terrain.

The footage has come out of a very advanced experiment being run up in the ISS specifically to look at whether we can observe and record more data from electrical storms from way above them.

That project is appropriately called Thor-Davis, in a pretty cool nod to the Norse god of thunder. It'll run for some time and also features some incredibly advanced neuromorphic camera technology.

This can shoot at the equivalent of around 100,000 frames per second, which is a pretty wild feat, and is apparently really power-efficient, making it useful for work like this in space.

Anadolu / Contributor / Getty

Wandt said that the experiments could have some really welcome outcomes: "We hope to help scientists to better understand upper-atmosphere dynamics and chemistry in a changing climate. Results could improve climate, atmosphere, and weather models."

That sounds even more impressive, although it might take quite a while to yield tangible results.

Unsurprisingly, the comments under Wandt's post are full of impressed reactions. One viewer said: "That's incredible!", and another agreed: "Our planet is fantastic".

Wandt is actually now back from the ISS and has his feet on Earth again, getting used to the quite lengthy process of adapting to life back in full gravity, something that can be pretty gruelling after a long time up in space.

Featured Image Credit: European Space Agency/ otrowbaresic / 500px/Getty