International Space Station marks 25 years with humans on board. See photos
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NASA astronaut Mike Fincke inserts a cryogenic storage unit containing research samples into a science freezer for preservation and later analysis on the International Space Station.
Lightning flickering near Wichita, Kansas, lit up the night sky on May 5, 2026, in a display powerful enough to be seen from low Earth orbit.
Footage from the Sen SpaceTV-1 camera system aboard the International Space Station shows repeated bursts of lightning flashing across storm clouds over the Plains. The video, shared via Getty Images, captures the storms from above the atmosphere as the station passed over the central United States.
The view offers a rare perspective on severe weather systems that regularly develop across the region, where warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collides with cooler, drier air from the north and west.
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Watch: International Space Station cam captures Kansas storm from space
From orbit, lightning appears not as individual bolts striking the ground, but as bright, rapid pulses lighting up entire storm systems from within. Cameras mounted on the SpaceTV-1 system, installed on the International Space Station, are designed to capture these high-energy atmospheric events as they unfold.
Scientists use this type of imagery to better understand storm structure, lightning frequency and how energy moves through large storm complexes.
“Storm observations from space station help scientists study Earth’s upper atmosphere, which can improve weather models and protect communication systems and aircraft,” NASA wrote after astronaut Nichole Ayers captured an image of lightning more than 250 miles above Milan, Italy, in July. “Space station crew take photographs of Earth that record how the planet changes over time due to human activity and natural events. This record allows scientists to monitor disasters and direct response on the ground and study phenomena.
Is all lightning visible from space?
Not all lightning is visible from space. Only the most intense flashes — or those occurring within large, organized storm systems — are likely to be detected by orbital cameras or sensors.
Some lightning occurs deep within clouds or is too weak to register clearly from orbit. But large storm complexes, like those common across the Plains during spring and early summer, often produce enough electrical activity to stand out from space-based observation systems.
Visibility depends on cloud thickness, storm height, lighting conditions and the sensitivity of the instruments.
What causes lightning — and how big can it get?
Lightning forms when storm clouds build up strong electrical charges. Inside a thunderstorm, ice particles, water droplets, and hail collide as they rise and fall through the cloud. Those collisions separate electrical charges — with positive charge gathering near the top of the cloud and negative charge near the bottom.
When the imbalance becomes strong enough, the cloud releases energy in a rapid electrical discharge, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That discharge can travel between clouds, within a single cloud, or between the cloud and the ground.
Most lightning bolts are only a fraction of a second long, but they can span impressive distances. A typical lightning channel can extend several miles from end to end, with some of the largest recorded flashes stretching more than 10 miles horizontally. Vertically, lightning activity is tied to the height of storm clouds, which in strong Plains thunderstorms can reach 8 to 12 miles high, pushing into the upper troposphere.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the longest-ever lightning “megaflash” stretched 515 miles across the southern U.S. in 2017.
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Brandi D. Addison covers weather across the United States as the Weather Connect Reporter for the USA TODAY Network. She can be reached at baddison@gannett.com. Find her on Facebook here.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Space station cam captures wild lightning burst in US storm. See video