Majestic And Haunting Red Jellyfish Lightning Over Texas Captured In Brilliant Photos

These haunting spurts of lightning have been dubbed “sprites.” Scientists have been documenting rare phenomenon in recent years: streaks of red lightning that resemble the tentacles of a glowing crimson jellyfish hanging high from the sky.

These haunting spurts of lightning have been dubbed "sprites," and are the product of super-fast electrical bursts that occur high up in the atmosphere some 37 to 50 miles in the sky, reaching toward space, according to the European Space Agency. While sprites have been sighted over every continent besides Antarctica since their discovery in 1989, the phenomenon still isn't very well known – they last mere tenths of a second, and generally are hidden from those of us on the ground by heavy storm clouds. Stephen Hummel, an expert on dark skies at the Austin McDonald Observatory, managed to capture a perfect photo of these sprites on July 2 from his vantage point on a ridge on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas.