On Thursday, May 24, a flock of glowing jellyfish appeared in the sky over Oklahoma. “More precisely, jellyfish sprites,” says Paul Smith, who photographed them during a severe thunderstorm near Oklahoma City.
“The sprites were flashing about 130 km from me. From this distance I could see where jellyfish appear over the tops of the storm pockets. I shot a lot of sprites that were 300 and 500 km away, but these were unusually close, so these are my best shots,”said Smith.
Sprites are an exotic form of upwardly directed lightning. Although they were observed more than once over the century, many scientists did not believe in their existence until 1989, when they were captured by cameras aboard the space shuttle.
“I've been shooting sprites since last summer when I accidentally caught them during the Perseid meteor shower. I already have several hundred shots and go out almost every night when there is a thunderstorm in the vicinity. I sat for five hours this month waiting for a clear view,”Smith said.
Oklahoma is the epicenter of a region called "Sprite Alley," a corridor that stretches across the United States Great Plains where severe thunderstorms produce many upward-directed lightning. This year, sprites and their giant jets cousins have already been seen over space from Texas to Nebraska.
Some researchers speculate that sprites may be related to cosmic radiation. According to them, subatomic particles from deep space enter the upper part of the earth's atmosphere, producing secondary electrons that cause upward lightning. If this is the case, then sprites may be observed more frequently in the coming months and years, as cosmic radiation intensifies due to the decline of the solar cycle.