A mysterious sighting of a green laser beam in the sky was captured on NASA video by a motion detection camera located outside Japan’s Hiratsuka City Museum. Museum curator Daichi Fuji set up motion-detecting cameras to capture images of the meteors and calculate their positions, brightnesses, and orbits.
At first, the bright green streaks seen in camera footage from September 16, 2022, seemed quite mysterious. After observation, it was found that the beams were synchronized with the small green dots that were faintly visible in the clouds.
As it turns out, the laser beam is being captured from space by one of NASA’s Earth-orbiting satellites. The Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2 or ICESat-2 was flying over the museum at the perfect time. An image of the laser beam is then captured.
According to a NASA statement, the museum’s motion detector footage captured the laser beams from a satellite on camera for the first time. “ICESat-2 was moving in an angular trajectory,” said Tony Martino, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The footage was captured as the green beam hit low clouds. To see a laser like this, you have to be in the right place.”
ICESat-2 was launched in September 2018. Lasers and precise detection tools are used to understand the thickness and geographic location of ice on Earth. The laser device is technically known as a lidar sensor. Because it deals with light detection and ranging. Lidar sensors are used to measure anything related to 3D and autonomous vehicles use this technology to understand the surrounding conditions. ICESat-2 can send 6 beams of light to Earth per second.