A blood-red ring suddenly blazing to life above the Italian Alps sounds like something from a sci‑fi movie – but it was completely real, and it lasted less than a thousandth of a second.
A photographer in northern Italy managed to catch this fleeting red halo hanging over the mountains during a nighttime thunderstorm, capturing a phenomenon known as an “elve.” Elves are enormous, fast-expanding disks of light that appear high above powerful thunderstorms, glowing in shades of red and sometimes other colors. They can spread to an incredible size, reaching up to about 300 miles (roughly 480 kilometers) across, yet they exist for only a tiny fraction of a second – far too fast for the naked eye to fully appreciate without a camera or video equipment.
These ghostly rings form when a very strong lightning strike sends an intense electromagnetic pulse upward into the ionosphere, the charged layer of Earth’s upper atmosphere where auroras also dance. Think of it like a sudden jolt of energy racing up from the storm, briefly exciting the thin gases high above and causing them to flash red. This is not ordinary lightning you see from the ground, but a separate kind of lightning-related display happening far overhead.
Italian photographer Valter Binotto set out that night with a different goal: he was hoping to photograph “sprites,” another type of lightning-related event that appears as bright red, jellyfish- or carrot-shaped flashes above storms. To improve his chances, he aimed his camera toward a thunderstorm with relatively fewer clouds, giving him a clearer view of the upper atmosphere. He did not end up capturing any sprites that night – but in a lucky twist, he recorded a bright, well-defined elve instead.
Binotto used a Sony A7S camera paired with a 20 mm f/1.8 lens, pushing the sensitivity all the way up to ISO 51,200 so the sensor could pick up extremely faint light in the dark sky. The image that has been shared is actually a single frame extracted from a video recorded at 25 frames per second. Recording video at such a high sensitivity is a clever strategy for catching ultra-brief events like elves, because the phenomenon may appear in just one or two frames before vanishing.
According to Binotto, this particular elve was triggered by a powerful negative lightning strike within a storm system near Vernazza, a town located about 300 kilometers south of his position. One lightning bolt from that storm carried an extraordinary current of about -303 kilo-ampères. The minus sign here refers to the direction, or polarity, of the charge flow, not that the current was somehow “less than zero.” For context, a typical lightning bolt usually carries somewhere in the range of 10 to 30 kilo-ampères. That means this strike was orders of magnitude stronger than what most people ever see.
The intense current produced a strong electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, which surged upward and energized the ionosphere. In response, the thin gases around 100 miles (about 160 kilometers) above Earth’s surface lit up, forming the giant red ring of the elve. Estimates suggest this particular halo was roughly 200 miles (about 320 kilometers) across – imagine a luminous disk stretching over an area larger than many countries, appearing and disappearing in less than an instant.
Interestingly, this was not Binotto’s first encounter with the phenomenon. From his home in Possagno, he had already managed to photograph an even more dramatic elve on March 23, 2023. In that earlier image, the structure of the halo appears even more intricate, showing richer detail as the red ring expanded across the sky. That repeat success hints at just how dedicated and patient he is as a sky watcher – these events are rare, unpredictable, and easy to miss.
If you enjoy photographing unusual Earth or space phenomena, this kind of work offers an exciting challenge. Capturing elves, sprites, and similar events usually requires careful planning, dark skies, sensitive equipment, and a willingness to stay up late watching storms from a safe distance. Many outlets invite enthusiasts to share their most striking images, often asking for the photo, a brief description, and the photographer’s name and location so the story behind the shot can be shared with a wider audience.
Behind the article about this elve is science writer Daisy Dobrijevic, who joined Space.com in early 2022 after writing for the magazine All About Space. Her background blends communication and science: she previously completed an editorial internship with BBC Sky at Night Magazine and worked at the National Space Centre in Leicester, U.K., where she spent time helping the public understand space science in a clear, engaging way. Daisy holds a PhD in plant physiology, along with a Master’s degree in Environmental Science, and is currently based in Nottingham, U.K.
Despite her academic roots in biology and the environment, Daisy is deeply passionate about space, especially solar activity and space weather – the very forces that shape many of the spectacular sights in our skies. She has a strong interest in astrotourism and loves chasing the northern lights, a hobby that fits perfectly with writing about phenomena like auroras, sprites, and elves. Her mix of scientific training and love for skywatching helps make complex atmospheric and space events understandable to readers who might be encountering these ideas for the first time.
And this is the part most people miss: events like elves sit at the crossroads of weather, electricity, and space physics, challenging the idea that thunderstorms are purely “local” happenings. They remind us that every lightning strike can send ripples all the way to the edge of space. Do you find these brief, almost invisible displays more exciting than classic auroras – or do you think they’re overhyped compared to more familiar sky shows? Would you stay up all night just for the chance to capture an elve on camera, or does that seem like too much effort for something that lasts less than a millisecond? Share your take – are these extreme lightning phenomena the future stars of skywatching, or just a niche curiosity for hardcore storm chasers?
