A beam of green light streaked across the sky over Japan, and it was something Daichi Fujii wasn't expecting. Cameras used to detect movements, located in a museum, were installed near Mount Fuji, in Japan, with the intention of capturing meteors. The camera was used to calculate the meteors, located the position, orbit and brightness.
However, the green lasers went through the camera and located something unprecedented, recorded on September 16, 2022, as a mystery to be discovered. Fujii enlarged the image, focused close to the green light beams, and synchronized with the point that “pierced” the blocking clouds. Immediately, he understood that it was a satellite.
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Upon realizing what the object was, Fujii searched the orbit data and was able to find what the green laser was about. It was NASA's ICESAT-2, or the so-called 'The Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2', which was flying over Mount Fuji that night. Fuji shared the discovery on social media and caught the attention of NASA, which decided to get in touch.
The creator of ICESAT-2, Tony Martino, claimed that it was the first time that the satellite could be seen from Earth.
"ICE-SAT-2 appeared to be almost directly overhead, with the beam hitting the low clouds at an angle," said the scientist and explained that to see the laser it is necessary to pay attention and be in the right place at the right time, since it does not stay visible.
The satellite was launched in 2018, so that laser light could carry out measurements of ice in Antarctica and Greenland, from the Earth's surface to space. The green laser, captured on camera, fires about 10,000 times per second. Being hundreds of kilometers from Earth, the laser is almost impossible to see.
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