Red ghosts in the Sardinian sky: the "electric jellyfish" captured between Stintino and Porticciolo.

Captured in the sky between Stintino and Porticciolo by photographer and videographer Daniele Macis, they illuminated the sea, coloring it red.

These are red sprites, a rare photograph in Sardinia, capturing the large electrical discharges that occur in the upper atmosphere, between 50 and 80-90 kilometers above sea level. This little-studied phenomenon occurs above large thunderstorms and is associated with air ionization. They appear for a brief moment, sometimes less than a thousandth of a second, making them difficult to see with the naked eye.

Their shape resembles that of enormous jellyfish, with a characteristic deep red color caused by interaction with nitrogen gas. Macis photographed them from the coast of northwestern Sardinia, near Stintino, in the direction of the Balearic Islands, at a distance of about 450 kilometers. Like lightning, the red spectra are electrical discharges.

While lightning discharges static electricity to the ground from a mass of saturated matter, red spectra discharge it from a mass placed above and towards the mass that originated the lightning.