Astrophotographer Uğur İkizler has managed to capture one of the most breathtaking and somewhat terrifying images of lightning I’ve ever seen. A time-lapse created by the photographer showcases over 100 different lightning bolts, all of which were captured during a thunderstorm in Turkey.
The storm broke over the town of Mudanya. When it did, İkizler grabbed a camera and began capturing the bolts as they hit. Altogether the time-lapse was captured over the course of 50 minutes. It isn’t unusual for this many lightning bolts to hit during a storm, either. In fact, roughly 1.4 billion bolts of lightning strike the ground every year, roughly 3 million a day. That’s around 44 bolts per second, according to the U.K Met Office.
With so many bolts hitting per second every day, it isn’t hard to see how İkizler was able to capture so many in such a short amount of time, especially if the storm was fierce. Of course, the image perfectly shows off the zig-zaggy nature of lightning bolts that have become so popular in modern artistic endeavors, something scientists believe may be caused by certain patterns of conductive oxygen.
Of course, the real reason behind those patterns is still unclear, though that oxygen may help account for it in some way. No matter the cause behind it, seeing 100 lightning bolts striking through the air in a time-lapse that takes less than 10 seconds is absolutely mind-blowing. It’s a great reminder of just how vast and intriguing our world is and how much we still have to learn about it.
In the past, we’ve also seen close-up footage of thunderstorms. Astrophotography Andrew McCarthy captured a breathtaking video of a thunderstorm last year, giving us a closer look at the clouds and lighting bolts that make up these tremendous storms.
