Imagine witnessing a colossal, glowing red ring suddenly appear in the night sky! That's precisely what happened over northern Italy, and one lucky photographer captured the moment.
This incredible phenomenon, known as an 'elve,' is a rapidly expanding, disk-shaped flash that can stretch up to 300 miles (480 kilometers) across. But here's where it gets interesting: elves last for less than a thousandth of a second! According to NOAA, these fleeting events occur high above thunderstorms. They're triggered by a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that shoots upward into the ionosphere – the same region where auroras, or the Northern Lights, dance.
Photographer Marco Binotto, initially hoping to capture sprites (brief electrical discharges above thunderstorms), instead stumbled upon an elve. "I didn't capture any sprites, but fortunately, I managed to capture this Elve!" he shared. He used a Sony A7S with a 20 mm f/1.8 lens at ISO 51,200, capturing the image as a frame from a video recorded at 25 fps.
"The ELVE was generated by a powerful negative lightning strike in a storm in Vernazza about 300 km south of me," Binotto explained. The lightning bolt carried an extraordinary -303 kilo-ampères (the minus sign denotes the lightning's polarity). This generated an intense EMP that illuminated the ionosphere. For comparison, typical lightning carries only 10 to 30 kilo-ampères. This particular elve was situated approximately 100 miles (160 km) above the Earth's surface and spanned roughly 200 miles (320 km) in diameter, as reported by Spaceweather.com.
Remarkably, this wasn't Binotto's first encounter with this eerie spectacle. He captured an even more dramatic elve on March 23, 2023, showcasing the structure in stunning detail.
Could this type of event become more common with climate change and more extreme weather? What do you think about the potential impact of these powerful electromagnetic pulses? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
