Spectacular pictures from space show the eye of tropical cyclone illuminated by lightning

Strong winds, massive waves, and flashing thunder make a storm an overwhelming experience on Earth. But from the vantage of space, that same storm can turn into a mesmerizing show of nature’s power. That’s exactly what happened in 2015 when the Expedition 42 crew aboard the International Space Station captured a cyclone near Madagascar. From their safe distance, they witnessed the eye of the storm glowing with flashes of lightning—a sight as stunning as it was intense.

Using a Nikon D4 digital camera with a 28-millimeter lens, the astronauts photographed this “electric eye” of tropical cyclone Bansi, as detailed by NASA Earth Observatory. The cyclone initially formed over the southwestern Indian Ocean on January 11, 2015, and unleashed its fury for eight days as it tracked from Madagascar across the Indian Ocean, briefly affecting Mauritius, before veering back toward the French island of Réunion. When these images were taken, Bansi was at its peak intensity, with sustained winds raging at 115 miles per hour, according to Live Science.

Eventually, by January 19, the cyclone reached its Category 4 strength, which, according to the National Hurricane Center, means that the maximum sustained winds were moving at about 157 miles per hour or higher, resulting in catastrophic damage. But on January 13, a day after the photos were taken, the eye of the storm was around 12 miles away, as per Live Science. According to NOAA, an eye of the cyclone usually appears when the maximum sustained wind speeds go above 74 miles per hour.

A cyclone's structure normally consists of three parts, namely the rainbands, the eyewall, and the eye. The cause of the formation of the eye is not evident but is probably linked to a combination of angular momentum and centrifugal force. People seeing the eye of the cyclone at night usually witness stars or birds or ships trapped in the swirl of water. In both photographs, a dim vortex of clouds appears to cover the surface of the ocean while the eye of the cyclone stands out, brilliantly lit by lighting. NASA explained that the astronauts used the camera’s low-light settings to accentuate the contrast between the dim and the glowing portions.

In the cyclone Bansi's second image, a soft golden-yellow-green glow also appears at the rim of the Earth. This is a natural phenomenon called “airglow,”  which Live Science describes as an aurora-like phenomenon that occurs when gases such as oxygen and nitrogen are excited by charged particles and ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Airglow is most commonly observed around the solar maximum, the most active phase in the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle. Just before Bansi's formation, a solar maximum had peaked sometime in 2014, which explains the airglow accompanying the cyclone. Apart from the airglow, the photographs show smatterings of sparkly stars as well as the solar panels of a Russian spacecraft.

The photographs called “ISS042-E-135015” and “ISS042-E-135030” respectively, were released by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center, after basic editing, cropping, and enhancing to accentuate contrast.