A photographer captured a fleeting, glowing red halo, an atmospheric phenomenon so rare it’s almost elusive. Known as an “elve,” the phenomenon lasted less than a thousandth of a second but left a lasting impression, especially for the photographer who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
This spectacular natural light show, triggered by a powerful lightning strike, was seen expanding nearly 300 miles across the sky. Elves are among the more mysterious occurrences in the world of atmospheric science and what makes them so unique is their enormous scale and brief, yet intense, burst of energy.
What Exactly Is an Elve?
An elve is a type of transient luminous event (TLE), a general category that also includes sprites and jets. These flashes occur high above thunderstorms, where electromagnetic pulses generated by lightning create sudden bursts of light in the ionosphere—Earth’s upper atmosphere.
According to NOAA, these bursts are the result of powerful lightning strikes below, which send an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) shooting upward into the ionosphere. The result is a sudden, brief flash of light that can span hundreds of miles. And when I say brief, I mean brief: the whole event lasts less than a thousandth of a second, making it incredibly difficult to capture on camera.
In the case of the elve photographed by Valter Binotto, a particularly strong lightning strike, a negative strike, to be precise, produced an EMP that illuminated the ionosphere, creating the stunning red halo.
“The ELVE was generated by a powerful negative lightning strike in a storm in Vernazza about 300 km south of me,” he told Spaceweather.com.
Binotto captured this stunning elve on March 23, 2023, from his home in Possagno. Credit: Valter Binotto
Binotto’s Serendipitous Capture of the Red Halo
Binotto wasn’t actively searching for elves when he captured this incredible shot of the red halo. He had set his sights on sprites, another atmospheric phenomenon. Sprites are brief, faint electrical discharges that appear above thunderstorms—quite different from elves, but no less spectacular. But as often happens in photography, luck played a role.
He was positioned roughly 300 kilometers from the storm in Vernazza, Italy, when the powerful lightning strike occurred. He was using a Sony A7S camera with a 20mm f/1.8 lens, shooting video at 25 frames per second.
“I didn’t capture any sprites, but fortunately, I managed to capture this Elve!” he wrote in an email.
For him, it was not his first brush with the phenomenon—he had captured a more dramatic red halo earlier in 2023, showcasing the complexity and scale of the event in even more detail.
A gigantic sprite caught leaping into the upper atmosphere above an intense thunderstorm, Credit: NASA/ Nichole Ayers.