NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured a stunning photograph of one of nature's most elusive phenomena from the International Space Station on July 3, 2025, initially believing she had documented a sprite, a rare form of atmospheric lightning, only to discover she had captured something even more extraordinary: a gigantic jet.

"Nichole Ayers caught a rare and spectacular form of a TLE from the International Space Station — a gigantic jet," confirmed Dr. Burcu Kosar, Principal Investigator of NASA's Spritacular project. The discovery represents one of the clearest views of this atmospheric phenomenon ever documented from space.

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[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I wonder where we can get a higher res picture. It bums me out these articles that talk about a nasa photo never seem to link to a the source images.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Even the NASA article has the same res.

https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/a-gigantic-jet-caught-on-camera-a-spritacular-moment-for-nasa-astronaut-nicole-ayers/

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Pretty much the norm. You know they have a higher res and its probably available if you know the magic url for it.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I dug through the astronaut photos and couldn't find it. Neat stuff in there, a time sink, but not easily searchable.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

They don't make them readily available to the public even though they should. Its probably the cost of hosting that keeps it all buried somewhere.