“Stunning” lightning photo over India: NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick on SpaceX mission shares image, goes viral

NASA astronaut and US Navy test pilot Matthew Dominick is in the spotlight for another incredible photo from space. The latest viral image shows the impressive flash in the night sky over India during a season of thunderstorms and monsoon rains.

On the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the International Space Station (ISS) astronaut on board the SpaceX Crew-8 mission posted a picture of lightning over the Indian subcontinent, taken from space. The caption of the post reads: “Lightning at night over India.”

Matthew Dominick shared the post on Saturday. He gave technical details about the gorgeous shot, explaining, “When I'm trying to capture light in an image, I use burst mode and hope for lightning to strike the frame. I was super happy when this lightning bolt landed in the middle of the frame. No cropping needed. 1/5 sec, 85mm, f1.4, ISO 6400.”

Lightning at night over India.

When I'm trying to capture light in an image, I use burst mode and hope that a lightning bolt will strike the frame. I was super happy when that lightning bolt landed in the middle of the frame. No cropping needed.

1/5s, 85mm, f1.4, ISO 6400 pic.twitter.com/OTSVLSBcQP

– Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) 17 August 2024

With over 10.11 lakh views, the post has garnered more than 13,000 likes. Netizens reacted strongly to this post with one user asking, “What are these two arches above?” To which Matthew Dominick replied, “Different layers of the Earth's atmosphere.”

Another user noted, “Is this blurring of the city lights due to camera shake, atmospheric influences, or simply motion in orbit?” The NASA astronaut answered the user's question by commenting, “At the bottom center of the image you can see lights from boats in the water that look like short little lines or streaks.”

He also noted that the streaks are caused by the space station's orbital speed, which is “the distance the space station travels in 1/5 of a second (the camera's exposure time).”

Matthew Dominick also suspects that the blurring over the city in the left and center of the image is due to light haze or clouds. This atmospheric phenomenon is combined with streaking caused by the orbital speed.

A third user tweeted: “If you look at it, it looks like the lightning struck somewhere in the middle of the Deccan Plateau, in a region like Bangalore.” A fourth user wrote: “Incredible picture!”