July 27, 2025
The atoms in your body have known many forms: star core, drifting dust, ocean mineral, living cell.
Lightning over the Volcano of Water
Birthday · July 27, 2025
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APOD published July 27, 2025. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
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 the Sun. The resulting shock wave starts supersonically and decays into the loud sound known as thunder. 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. Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)