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ISS astronaut shares video of gorgeous 'lightning dance'

Video from International Space Station commander Randy Bresnik shows skies lighting up like paparazzi flashbulbs over the California coast.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper

Hollywood is used to making movies, but now the region is the star of a delightful (and short) nighttime flick captured from about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

Lightning strikes pop like paparazzi flashbulbs over southern California in a tweet shared Saturday by NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander of the International Space Station.

The 35-second video shows city lights and repeated lightning strikes seen as the ISS continues its roll across the skies from California's coast down through Baja, Mexico.