Wow — what an incredible capture. ⚡ This video shows a massive cumulonimbus anvil cloud illuminated from within by multiple lightning strikes, photographed over Bangladesh with a long exposure of 130 seconds. The result is a glowing, brain-like storm cell, each bolt etching light through the churning cloud tops. These towering thunderheads can reach up to the stratosphere, where the air is so cold that lightning briefly lights up ice crystals, creating this surreal pink and violet glow. | AstroN

This scene captures a rare atmospheric phenomenon: an anvil-shaped cumulonimbus cloud crowned with a thin, iridescent layer. The colors appear when sunlight scatters through microscopic ice crystals at the cloud’s upper boundary, producing a spectrum similar to a rainbow but formed by diffraction, not rain. What looks dramatic is simply the physics of light interacting with a rapidly rising storm column at sunset. | AstroNature