Jellyfish-Like Sprite Makes Surprising Appearance in Sky

Jellyfish-Like Sprite Makes Surprising Appearance in Sky
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Jellyfish-Like Sprite Makes Surprising Appearance in Sky

Jellyfish-Like Sprite Makes Surprising Appearance in Sky

If you've ever looked up during a thunderstorm and glimpsed a red jellyfish sitting high in the sky, you weren't hallucinating. These tentacle-like spurts of red lightning are called sprites. They're ultrafast bursts of electricity that crackle through the upper regions of the atmosphere, between 37 and 50 miles (60 and 80 kilometers) up in the sky, and move towards space, according to the European Space Agency. The phenomenon is a rare sighting: It lasts just tenths of a second and can be hard to see from the ground since it's generally obscured by storm clouds. But Stephen Hummel, a dark-skies specialist at the McDonald Observatory, captured a spectacular image of one of these sprites on July 2 from a ridge on Mount Locke in Texas.

"Sprites usually appear to the eye as very brief, dim, grey structures. You need to be looking for them to spot them, and oftentimes I am not certain I actually saw one until I check the camera footage to confirm," Hummel told Business Insider.

On the night he snapped this photo, he'd recorded 4 1/2 hours of footage before capturing the sprite on film. "Overall I've probably recorded close to 70 hours' worth of footage and stills this year, and caught about 70 sprites," he said, adding that half of those were in a single storm.

Davis Sentman, a professor of physics at the University of Alaska who died in 2011, proposed the name "sprite" for this type of weather phenomenon. He said the name was "well suited to describe their appearance."

Some sprites, like the one Hummel photographed, are jellyfish-shaped. Others are just vertical columns of red light with tendrils snaking down: these are called carrot sprites. Jellyfish sprites can be enormous – the one Hummel photographed was "probably around 30 miles long and 30 miles tall," he said. Some can be seen from more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) away.

"They occur because when lightning strikes the ground, it tends to release positive electrical energy that needs to be balanced out by equal and oppositely charged energy elsewhere in the sky. So sprites are the electrical discharges that balance the equation. The more powerful the storm and the more lightning it produces, the more likely it is to produce a sprite," Hummel explained.



Heartbroken Brits Abandon Pets as Living Costs Bite

Rising numbers of pets are being left at the Mayhew shelter in London as owners no longer able to afford their care take the heartbreaking decision to try to re-home them. Ben STANSALL / AFP
Rising numbers of pets are being left at the Mayhew shelter in London as owners no longer able to afford their care take the heartbreaking decision to try to re-home them. Ben STANSALL / AFP
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Heartbroken Brits Abandon Pets as Living Costs Bite

Rising numbers of pets are being left at the Mayhew shelter in London as owners no longer able to afford their care take the heartbreaking decision to try to re-home them. Ben STANSALL / AFP
Rising numbers of pets are being left at the Mayhew shelter in London as owners no longer able to afford their care take the heartbreaking decision to try to re-home them. Ben STANSALL / AFP

Staff at a London animal shelter have seen more than their fair share of abandoned pets over the years, from kittens in boxes to budgies dropped outside in the dead of night.
But lately there has been a surge in the numbers as people make the heartbreaking decision to give up their animal companions, no longer able to afford to care for their pets.

Struggling animal owners are feeling "a lot of heartache... and also shame and frustration that they're having to make these decisions," said Elvira Meucci-Lyons, the boss of the Mayhew shelter in Kensal Green, west London.

"They come to us because they feel they have no choice," she said.

"Behind every animal we take in there's a human story."

The small center has taken in more than 130 animals this year alone. It is part of a wider rise across the UK, where tens of thousands of pets have been abandoned since the Covid-19 pandemic and the onset of a cost-of-living crisis.

In the first few months of this year, more than 5,700 abandonments have been reported to the RSPCA, the world's oldest animal welfare organization -- a 32 percent rise on the same period in 2024.

Last year saw around 22,500 cases reported in total, up more than seven percent on 2023.
The challenge of affording animal care poses a heart-wrenching problem for many in Britain, a nation of dog and cat lovers where half the adult population -- more than 26 million people -- has a pet, according to the RSPCA.

And it has hit the country's poorest especially hard. Staff at Mayhew said some owners were having to choose between feeding themselves or their pets.

Several pets at the center -- including dogs Brownie, a one-year-old toy poodle, and Astro, a pocket American bully -- were brought in because their owners lost their homes due to financial troubles.

Stories like these are "the most upsetting", Meucci-Lyons said, because in hard times pet owners "need their lovely animals more than ever and the dog or cat doesn't want to do without their owner."

Rising vet bills
Mayhew staff said more pets were also arriving at the center in Kensal Green in poor health, often because their owners cannot afford veterinary bills.

Felix's case is typical. The muscular nine-year-old tomcat was playing with a length of string. But he arrived with tooth problems, with his owners bringing him to the shelter and saying they couldn't afford to keep him.
"We're seeing quite a lot more needing dental work nowadays," said Mayhew spokeswoman Olivia Patt.

The pandemic saw a spike in pet ownership under government lockdowns, and a subsequent wave of people then giving up their animals as normal lifestyles resumed.

Some people are returning lockdown pets, several years on. But RSPCA spokesman David Bowles told AFP that living costs, which soared during the pandemic, have become a major factor driving abandonments.

"We are now five years on from the first lockdown under Covid. The RSPCA believes the cost-of-living crisis is really impacting people's ability to pay for vet treatment in particular," he said.

UK inflation soared above 11 percent in October 2022, the highest level in more than four decades, and while it has slowed in the last few years, people are still feeling the squeeze.

Prices for many items including pet food have gone up by around 25 percent.
At Mayhew, staff have been doing all they can, from providing struggling owners with pet food and animal care packages, to offering free preventative treatments.

But the pressure has pushed the shelter's bubbly staff to their limits.

"We are run off our feet, we can't keep up with the demand," said Meucci-Lyons.

Even though the staff are comforted by knowing they make a difference, "every day it is heartbreaking -- we go to bed at night thinking about the dogs and cats we can't help," she said.