Eerie red lights glowing in Earth's atmosphere captured by astronaut in jaw-dropping image

A NASA astronaut has spotted some spooky looking red lights floating in Earth's atmosphere.

Space is, as we know, largely a big old mystery to us humans living on this huge floating rock, and it would seem that some things still surprise the experts who boldly go where most never will.

One of those is the commander of NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission, Matthew Dominick, who recently captured a pic of a strange phenomena, called a 'red sprite', hanging over Earth.

An astronaut recently captured this striking image. (Nasa/Matthew Dominick)

According to NASA, these bizarre weather events (definitely not aliens... ) happen over lightning clouds, way up in the mesosphere.

Sharing his photo on social media, Dominick said: "Super lucky a few weeks ago when shooting a timelapse of a lightning storm off the coast of South Africa.

"One of the frames in the timelapse had a red sprite.

"If there are any red sprite experts out there I would enjoy tips on how to capture more of these.

"Clearly, look for lightning storms, but I'm thinking the stronger the storm the better."

NASA is now encouraging us regular folk to get in touch with our own photos.

A previous red sprite captured by the European Space Agency. (ESA)

In a press release about the incident, a spokesperson for the space agency urged followers to share information to help their scientists study the phenomena in greater detail.

It said: "While space station crew hunt for TLEs from space, you can help right here on Earth: send your photographs of sprites and other TLEs to NASA’s citizen science project, Spritacular, to contribute to a crowdsourced database that professional scientists can use for research."

This comes after another astronaut recently opened up about their own experience of seeing Earth from way, way up there.

Former cadet Ron Garan spent 178 days in space, and it had a profound effect on how he viewed our planet, coming to the 'sobering realisation' that us Earthlings are 'living a lie'.

Speaking to the Big Think, the New Yorker said that he realised the things that most humans are worried about aren't a big deal after all - but we should be a lot more concerned about global warming, deforestation and biodiversity loss.

Ron Garan realised we were 'living a lie' while up in space. (Erika Goldring/Getty Images)

"When I looked out the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them.

"And I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere. In that moment, I was hit with the sobering realisation that that paper-thin layer keeps every living thing on our planet alive.

"I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life. I didn't see the economy. But since our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie."

Something to think about, eh?