Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: Have you ever watched a lightning storm in awe? You're not alone.Details of what causes lightning are still being researched, but it is known that inside some clouds, internal updrafts cause collisions between ice and snow that slowly separate charges between cloud tops and bottoms.The rapid electrical discharges that are lightning soon result. Lightning usually takes a jagged course,rapidly heating a thin column of air to about three times the surface temperature of theSun. The resulting shock wave startssupersonically and decays into theloud sound known asthunder. On average, around the world, about 6,000 lightning bolts occur between clouds and the Earth every minute.Pictured in July 2019 in a two-image composite, lightning stems from communication antennas near the top of Volcán de Agua (Volcano of Water) in Guatemala.