system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is lightning on earth bright enough to be seen from the surface of the moon?

Lightning can definitely be seen from space, and there are many pictures of this. Is lightning big enough / bright enough to be seen from as far away as the moon? If you were an Apollo astronaut standing on the surface of the moon looking at the earth, would you be able to see the flashes of thunderstorms on earth?
gpt
Lightning on the *night side* of the Earth can be seen from the orbit, yes. The problem is that seen from the moon, Earth has phases just like the moon, and the dayside is almost always at least partially visible, its brightness drowning out pretty much anything happening on the nightside. And when Earth is "new" or a narrow crescent, it's going to be close to the sun in the sky so no luck then either.