A Gorgeous Time-Lapse of Lighting Storms Over Africa From Space

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This time-lapse shot from the International Space Station reveals the Milky Way as storms illuminate Africa below. The video is courtesy of the Crew Earth Observations group at NASA Johnson Space Center, and the path of the time-lapse is described on their site, the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth:

The sequence of shots was taken December 29, 2011 from 20:55:05 to 21:14:09 GMT, on a pass from over central Africa, near southeast Niger, to the South Indian Ocean, southeast of Madagascar ... The Milky Way can be spotted as a hazy band of white light at the beginning of the video. The pass continues southeast toward the Mozambique Channel and Madagascar. The Lovejoy Comet can be seen very faintly near the Milky Way.



 

For more amazing shots by the crew on board the Space Station, all courtesy of NASA, see this compilation by the Atlantic Video channel:

For more videos from the Crew Earth Observations group at NASA Johnson Space Center, visit the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

Via Devour

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Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic. She curates the Video channel. More

Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg's work in media spans documentary television, advertising, and print. As a producer in the Viewer Created Content division of Al Gore's Current TV, she acquired and produced short documentaries by independent filmmakers around the world. Post-Current, she worked as a producer and strategist at Urgent Content, developing consumer-created and branded nonfiction campaigns for clients including Cisco, Ford, and GOOD Magazine. She studied filmmaking and digital media at Harvard University, where she was co-creator and editor in chief of H BOMB Magazine.

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