April 4, 2023, 5:00 PM
April 4, 2023, 5:00 PM
A strange and huge red luminous ring was sighted for just a few milliseconds in the sky in various parts of Italy during the night of March 27, according to specialized and local media reports.
It is not an unidentified flying object, but it is something unusual; This circular flash is a “light emission and very low-frequency disturbances due to electromagnetic pulse sources,” a phenomenon known as the Transient Light Effect (TLE), as described by the Spaceweather.com site.
The TLE image was captured by a photographer in the sky over the northern Italian city of Possagno, but due to its enormous size, some 360 kilometers in diameter, it could probably be seen from many parts of the country and part of the sea. Adriatic.
How is a TLE produced?
This phenomenon normally occurs during thunderstorms, via electromagnetic pulses emitted by lightning striking Earth’s ionosphere, the ionized part of the upper atmosphere that extends 50 to 40 miles above the ground.
The ring-shaped reddish glow was likely produced more than 100 kilometers from Earth’s ground when charged particles, such as electrons, came into contact with nitrogen atoms.
One of the best photos taken on Earth
TLE are very rare phenomena and their short duration makes it difficult to observe or capture them with any terrestrial camera. According to the Space Weather site, the image obtained by Valter Vinotto could be “the best ever taken of a TLE from Earth.”
Vinotto has been photographing TLE’s since 2019, but says that the latter is “one of the largest structures” he has seen.
NASA discovered the existence of these natural phenomena only in 1990 thanks to cameras located in space. It is not the first time that similar events have been captured from Earth.
Edited by José Ignacio Urrejola
