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3w ago

Astronaut’s ISS Photo Captures Rare Red Sprite Above Mexico and U.S.

The image provides researchers unprecedented high-altitude data revealing how fleeting upper-atmosphere lightning forms in storm-generated electric fields.

Earlier this week the NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured an amazing image of a sprite—a rarely photographed weather phenomenon—as the International Space Station passed above a storm over Mexico.
Image

Overview

  • On July 3, 2025, NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers photographed a red sprite from the International Space Station while flying over Mexico and the United States.
  • Sprites are brief Transient Luminous Events triggered by positive cloud-to-ground lightning that extend electric fields into the mesosphere and last only fractions of a second.
  • Ayers shared the image on X with the caption “Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite,” and it quickly went viral.
  • This latest capture builds on June 2024 ISS observations and offers scientists a clear, space-based view for studying sprite formation, characteristics and their interactions with thunderstorms.
  • Ayers is serving as pilot on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission aboard the ISS through at least August 2025 while conducting a range of atmospheric and physiological experiments.