Valter Binotto captured a lightning sprite and ELVE in a single frame.
A photographer has captured not one but two rare forms of lightning, which he compares to the famous scene from Independence Day when the alien mothership destroys the White House.
Italian photographer Valter Binotto captured lightning known as ELVE and sprites in a single frame on November 28 near the town of Possagno. “This is a rare duo lineup of Sprite and ELVE,” Binotto writes on Instagram. “Sprite is the red tentacle object at the center. The red ‘flying disc’ around them is the ELVE.”
Sprites are rare enough, but ELVES are extremely rare; they are also massive. “ELVEs occur when an unusually powerful lightning strike generates an intense electromagnetic impulse (EMP),” Binotto explains. “The red ring indicates the point where the EMP hit the Earth’s ionosphere.”
Because there are stars present in the photo, Binotto was able to measure the size of the ELVE: it has a height of roughly 85 kilometers (53 miles) and a diameter of 230 kilometers (143 miles). The photographer notes that the alien mothership from Independence Day was 550 kilometers (342 miles) in diameter, “so this ELVE was a smaller but worthy rival.”
Binotto has captured ELVEs before: in 2023 he caught an even bigger one that measured 359 kilometers (223 miles) wide. “With normal cameras, they are difficult to photograph,” he told PetaPixel at the time. “The light they emit is very low and in the infrared, where the sensors cannot see. I use a camera without the normal IR Cut filter so it also sees the infrared band well.”
The enormous ELVE that Binotto captured in 2023.
Because the ELVE is visible for just a millisecond, Binotto has to record video and set his camera to high ISO, and set the lens wide open. But to get a sprite at the same time is truly incredible. The sprite and the ELVE were sparked by a single lightning strike over the Adriatic Sea about 350 kilometers (217 miles) away from Binotto’s position. “The positive lightning had a peak current of 387 kA, about ten times higher than a normal lightning,” Binotto adds.
ELVE stands for Emissions of Light and Very Low-Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. It’s a rare form of Sprite, which is also a large-scale electrical discharge that occurs high above a thunderstorm cloud. Scientists are still studying the phenomenon.
Binotto was inspired to start photographing ELVEs and sprites in 2017 after he saw pictures of them on the internet and challenged himself to get his own.
More of Binotto’s work can be found on his Facebook, Instagram, and website.
Image credits: All photos by Valter Binotto.