If we had a dime for how many times green optical maser fall from the sky have been caught on camera in the last six calendar month , well , we would have two dimes , which is not much but it is uncanny that it happened twice . Just a few months back we report on aMatrix - like glitchthat was caught over the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii . Now , footage from over Mount Fuji in Japan grab last year exhibit something similar .
The location is once again link to a volcano but it is several thousand miles west . Footage of the green lasers was recorded by motion - detecting cameras set up by Daichi Fujii , an uranologist and museum curator ground near Mount Fuji on September 16 , 2022 . The cameras were supposed to spot meteoroid but captured something else entirely : a satellite at piece of work .
The orbiter in question is NASA ’s ICESat-2 , or Ice , Cloud , and land Elevation SATellite-2 . While the acronym might not be the best , the scientific discipline observation that it carry out are pretty awesome . It can pip 10,000 laser pulsate a second with about 20 trillion photon go away the ballistic capsule . About a dozen follow back but those are enough to evaluate the elevation of glass sheet , glaciers , and sea chicken feed in exquisite detail . ICESat-2 can also measure the heights of forests , lakes , urban areas , and cloud cover .
Artist’s impression of ICESat-2 beaming its lasers down to Earth. Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
But the lasers are not really visible unless the right condition take home . You might involve a bit of cloud reporting to scatter the lightness but not too much otherwise it would be block . Due to the rhythmic nature of the lasers and a flash target beyond the swarm , Fujii suspected a satellite and the course of ICESat-2 was coherent with the observance .
The ICESat-2 team found Fujii ’s post on social media and pass to verify if it was indeed their satellite have the lights . The bug above Hawai’i back in February was at first attribute to ICES - at2 as well before the genuine perpetrator , theChinese Daqi-1 / AEMS orbiter , was identified . Analyzing the datum from the night in September last year , Tony Martino , ICESat-2 instrument scientist at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center , watch that two lean layer of swarm were present over Japan , allowing for the light to become visible . With the exact location of the orbiter , the beams , and the nebulous conditions , Martino support it was ICESat-2 .
“ ICESat-2 look to be almost directly overhead of him [ Fujii ] , with the beam hitting the low clouds at an angle , ” Martino said in astatement . “ To see the optical maser , you have to be in the accurate right position , at the right sentence , and you have to have the correct conditions . ”
In fact , this is the first clock time the ICESat-2 squad has actually seen footage of its lidar instrument in action .
Do n’t vex , the optical maser luminance is not harmful at all . It travel so far that by the sentence it reaches the undercoat that it has roughly the same specialty as a camera flare from 30 meters ( 100 feet ) away .
