City lights and lightning flashes among the clouds, known as airglow can be seen in a new stunning video released by NASA on Monday.

This spectacular timelapse was taken from the International Space Station (ISS) at 400 kilometres from the surface of the Earth.

Traveling at a speed of five miles per second, The International Space Station (ISS) orbits Earth every 90 minutes. Its a micro-gravity laboratory home to six lucky people 250 miles (400km) above the Earth’s surface.

On its way, ISS provides a unique view of the Earth’s curvature and atmospheric conditions. ISS’ crew are collecting data which provide a crucial insight into cloud cover, volcanic eruptions, floods and other natural disasters.

In the sequence, the camera’s angle captures the glow of the Earth’s atmosphere and the millions upon millions of lights which outline the spread of human civilization.



In June 2017, NASA is planning to launch a new explorer mission, The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON), which will study the boundary between Earth and space, 50 to 600 miles above the planet’s surface.

ICON addresses a national need to predict these kinds of disturbed conditions in space,

said Thomas Immel, principal investigator for ICON in a news release.

These disturbances can cause radio communication to suddenly and unexpectedly drop out, which is a problem for ships, airplanes, the global positioning system, and the military.

Researchers could use ICON’ data to predict what drives disturbances in the ionosphere.