Heterogeneous red lightning with long giant jellyfish-like tendrils appears in the sky over Texas.
McDonald’s Observatory expert Stephen Hummel photographed red heterogeneous lightning bolts that appeared in Locke Mountain, Texas on July 2. “Monomorphic lightning often flashes before your eyes like blurry structures. You have to look closely to detect them. Sometimes I’m not sure I’ve seen the distorted lightning until I check the camera again,” Hummel said. .
Heterogeneous lightning is an extremely rapid electrostatic discharge that takes place in the upper part of the atmosphere at an altitude of around 60 to 80 km, according to the European Space Agency. This phenomenon is very difficult to see. It only lasted less than a second and was difficult to see from the ground as it was often obscured by thunderstorms.
Some warped lightning bolts bear a jellyfish-shaped resemblance to a photo taken by Hummel. Others are just pillars of red light with an acorn facing down. Mismatched lightning bolts of jellyfish can grow to very large sizes. The lightning photographed by Hummel can be nearly 50 km long, 50 km high. Some of these clays are visible more than 500 km away.
“The stronger a thunderstorm and generating more electricity, the greater the likelihood that a distorted lightning bolt will occur,” Hummel said. Although it looks like normal lightning, malformed lightning occurs at much higher altitudes. Astronauts also sometimes see ill-formed lightning bolts from the International Space Station (ISS).
Heterogeneous lightning is red because nitrogen is suspended at high altitude in the Earth’s atmosphere. The gas is excited by an electric current and emits a red light. Since the discovery of heteromorphic lightning in 1989, scientists have observed them on all continents except Antarctica.
