--- title: Vine: Astronaut Terry Virts Shows Lighting Storm From Space in Vine description: Astronaut Terry Virts shared stunning footage of a lightning storm as seen from outer space. canonical: https://time.com/3856637/space-vine-lightning-terry-virts/ author: Jack Linshi article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-12T23:33:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:28.623Z og:title: One Astronaut's Vine Shows a Huge Lightning Storm From Space og:description: "A majestic performance that inspires awe and respect." og:url: https://time.com/3856637/space-vine-lightning-terry-virts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: One Astronaut's Vine Shows a Huge Lightning Storm From Space twitter:description: "A majestic performance that inspires awe and respect." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # One Astronaut's Stunning Vine Shows a Huge Lightning Storm From Space > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: International Space Station Toilet Tour [Watch (HLS stream): International Space Station Toilet Tour](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vw9eiGOt.m3u8) (2:53)  _Published 2015-05-11. International Space Station Toilet Tour_  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi May 12, 2015 11:33 PM UTC  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi May 12, 2015 11:33 PM UTC American astronaut Terry Virts posted a breathtaking Vine recently that showed a huge lightning storm as seen from the International Space Station. It’s the latest [Vine](http://time.com/2845410/this-is-the-first-vine-ever-recorded-in-space/) that astronauts have been posting since they started using the app. “Massive lightning storm over India,” Virts wrote on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/astroterry/status/597041889683054592). “A majestic performance that inspires awe and respect.” Astronauts have recorded tons of fun footage during their time in space, including this fascinating video from Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who explained how exactly they use the [bathroom](http://time.com/3853638/toilet-international-space-station/) in zero gravity. Now that Virts, Cristoforetti and Anton Shkaplerov will be in a space longer than anticipated, perhaps we’ll see more of these short clips soon. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Hello, and welcome to the toilet of the International Space Station. [ INAUDIBLE ] and you need to go to the bathroom Restroom. You want to come to this cabin. And the first thing you wanna do is grab this piece of equipment and turn this rotary switch ninety degrees, to the open position. What that does is it turns on a fan, which creates a suction effect in this hose, so that you can use this yellow element for your number one. For number two, the principle is actually exactly the same. Suction. We have a solid waste container here, and on top of it is this seat. And the solid waste container is connected via these holes to the same fan, so that, again, the same suction effect allows you to do your number two in weight I wanna show you how it looks but, since we don't want any bad smells, to come out, we're gonna actually turn on the fan. It's gonna be a little bit loud. There we go. Now you can lift the lid. There is This seat that sort of looks comfortable, but you don't really sit in weightlessness, so most of us actually prefer to lift this one as well, and use directly the open that goes into the bag. And in fact there is a bag in there, it looks like this. And when we are done with our business, we close the bag and we push it down into the solid waste container. And then, of course, as a courtesy to the next person, we put a new fresh bag inside. [ MUSIC ] The solid waste container That's changed what it's for which is roughly every ten days for two or three people using it. This one for example was on start on the 61st day of this year so probably roughly around day 71 or we'll have to change again. But urine gets recycled so from. The pretty complicated hydrologic equipment that is behind here and makes the use of the toilet in space possible. The unit actually gets directly transferred to another piece of equipment, which is here in the floor, which is called UPA, urine processing Cistern assembly, which is the first step into turning urine into potable water. 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