Amazing 'Red Lightning' Photographed from Space

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) captured two rare photographs of red sprites from above on Aug. 10. Red sprites are strange luminous phenomena that occur alongside more familiar lightning strikes. "They're very exciting to look at, they create these fabulous visual images, but there is a lot that we still don't understand about them," said Ryan Haaland, a professor of physics at Fort Lewis College in Colorado who is involved in an ongoing project studying sprites.