Watching lightning storms from your bedroom window is one thing, watching as they strike from 255 miles above Earth is something entirely different.

As storms raged across Europe and Africa last night, Tim Peake captured them in all their mesmerising beauty from on-board the International Space Station.

The British astronaut tweeted a timelapse of the footage, explaining that it's 'amazing how much lightning can strike our planet in a short time.'

As storms raged across Europe and Africa last night, Tim Peake captured them in all their mesmerising beauty from on-board the International Space Station. The footage was filmed as the ISS travelled over North Africa, Turkey and towards Russia (pictured)

The footage was filmed as the ISS travelled over North Africa, Turkey and towards Russia.

The ISS completes an orbit of Earth every 92.91 minutes and moves at 17,100 miles (27,600km) per hour.

It is typically visible as it flies over the regions in the clip between 6pm and 7pm local time.

STATS AND FACTS: THE ISS Construction of the ISS began on 20 November 1998. It supports a crew of up to six, with crews split into groups of three. The station orbits at a height of about 255 miles (410km). It has a total mass of about 990,000 pounds (450,000kg) and has living space roughly equivalent to a five-bedroom house. It completes an orbit of Earth every 92.91 minutes and moves at 17,100 miles (27,600km) per hour. It has now been in space for more than 5,900 days, during which time it has completed more than 92,000 orbits of Earth, and has been continuously occupied for more than 13 years. Advertisement

The ideal conditions for lightning and thunderstorms occur where warm, moist air rises and mixes with cold air above.

These conditions occur almost daily in many parts of the Earth and rarely in other areas, making certain regions more prone to strikes.

For example, parts of Africa including the Democratic Republic of the Congo have the highest frequency of lightning on Earth.

This is caused by air from the Atlantic Ocean hitting mountains as it blows across the region.

Nasa tracks lightning strikes using satellites fitted with sensors and information from these satellites is sent to staff on Earth.

During the 33-second clip, a spattering of flashes is seen on the horizon.

As the ISS soars towards Eastern Europe, the flashes become more intense and centralised and the cloud cover thickens.

More lightning occurs over land than water because the sun heats the land surface faster than the ocean.

The ISS completes an orbit of Earth every 92.91 minutes and moves at 17,100 miles (27,600km) per hour. It typically visible as it flies over the regions in the clip between 6pm and 7pm local time. Lightning strikes are shown by the bright flashes in the centre of this image

During the 33-second clip, a spattering of flashes is seen on the horizon. As the ISS soars towards Eastern Europe, the flashes become more intense and centralised and the cloud cover thickens (pictured)

The heated land surface warms the air above it and that warm air rises to encounter cold air.

Researchers recently found that regardless of where in the world a person is, lightning bolts are at their most powerful at 8am.

This is because there are fewer particles in the atmosphere overnight so it takes a more powerful charge to overcome the extra distance between these particles and release the bolt of power.

Amazing how much lightning can strike our planet in a short time #Principia #timelapsehttps://t.co/XijV5E1pI0 — Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) February 9, 2016

British astronaut Tim Peake tweeted the clip on Tuesday. He said it was 'amazing how much lightning can strike the planet in a short time' (pictured)

Thunderstorms get energy from the heat released by the condensation of water vapour (illustrated). Using climate records, and simulations up to 2098, experts recently said warming will create more precipitation and less circulation. The number of storms will stay the same, but they will become more intense

THE POWER OF LIGHTNING In the afternoon, when the number of lightning flashes reaches its maximum, air warmed all day by the sun is rising. That rising air carries with it water vapour, which turns into ice and other particles that pick up an electric charge. The abundance of these particles not only increases the electric charge in late afternoon clouds, it also shortens the distance between the positive and negative charges. This makes it easier to connect and fire. At night the convective engine is relatively weaker and atmospheric mixing is reduced. Particle charging continues, however, although there are fewer particles. This lower number of particles means there are larger distances between them. It therefore takes a more powerful charge to overcome the extra distance. Without frequent lightning flashes to discharge electric charge built up in the air, the potential current increases until it builds enough charge to overcome the constraints and release a powerful bolt of cloud-to-ground lightning. Advertisement

By comparison, more storms occur in the afternoon as solar heating charges a higher number of particles, but these storms are weaker.

Typical afternoon lightning might vary from 6,000 to 20,000 amps per ground flash but powerful morning lightning to ground strokes can average 30,000 amps.

Urbanised areas are also 5 per cent more likely to be hit by thunderstorms, on a given day, than rural areas of the same size.

Storms were more likely to hit these urbanised areas during warmer months, in July and August, in the late afternoon and early evening.

These findings add further weight to the fact rising temperatures increase the frequency of storms, but also that increased pollution levels in urban areas play a major role.

In addition to pollution, urbanised areas cause more storms because they create 'urban heat-islands'.

Concentrations of buildings can increase temperatures causing low pressures to form above cities, compared to high pressures in rural areas.

This causes a so-called 'low-level atmospheric convergence', which forces air up into thunderstorms.