In late January, the Subaru telescope’s camera caught an unusual phenomenon in the night sky, and now scientists know what’s behind it.
As early as January 28, a series of strange green laser beams appeared in the night sky over the Hawaiian Islands. A few days later, scientists suggested a NASA spacecraft was behind the unusual phenomenon, but that turned out not to be the case, ScienceAlert writes.
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A string of green laser beams hit the camera lens of the Subaru telescope, atop an extinct volcano, Mauna Kea, owned by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Its height is 4,207 m and it is the highest mountain of the Hawaiian Islands, located on the main island of this archipelago, the island of Hawaii. Thanks to this position, the Subaru Telescope camera not only has an excellent view of space, but also captures sometimes unusual atmospheric phenomena.
The green laser beams appeared in quick succession, and after the video of this “laser show” was posted on the Web, users even compared the phenomenon to the green lines of computer code that appeared on the screen in the “The Matrix” movies. Some even suggested that those who scanned the Earth might be aliens.
A few days after the strange laser beams appeared, scientists from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said that this green light was most likely the result of the operation of a NASA space satellite called ICESat-2. According to scientists, these rays came from a radar device on the satellite.
ICESat-2 studies changes in the ice, icebergs, glaciers and permafrost that cover the Earth. These data are needed to understand how strong climate change is and how it is affecting these regions. For research, the satellite uses a special device that directs laser beams to the Earth’s surface. It is capable of firing 10,000 green laser pulses per second.
But recently, Japanese scientists said that NASA spacecraft had nothing to do with the appearance of green lasers in the sky over Hawaii. According to scientists, studying the flight path of the potential culprit of the “laser show”, they came to the conclusion that this phenomenon is the result of the work of another spacecraft – the Chinese Daqi-1 satellite. It has instruments similar to the ICESat-2 satellite. This satellite was launched into Earth orbit in April last year to study the Earth’s atmosphere and specifically its pollution level.
Among the spacecraft’s instruments is a lidar that uses laser beams to detect pollutants in the atmosphere. The working principle of lidar is somewhat similar to that of sonar. But instead of sending sound waves, it sends laser beams. Scientists believe these laser beams were visible in the sky over Hawaii in late January.
Focus I already wrote that at the end of January, the camera of the Subaru telescope recorded another unusual phenomenon in the night sky. The object looked like a spiral galaxy, and it turned out that the culprit of its appearance was the launch of a SpaceX launch vehicle.
If we talk about events occurring in space, then Focus NASA has already written that spacecraft cameras have captured an image of a powerful plasma explosion on the Sun. It appeared in the region of the Sun, which is several times larger than our planet, and the plasma stream itself is not small.
Source: Focus
Ashley Fitzgerald is an accomplished journalist in the field of technology. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a deep understanding of the latest technology developments, Ashley’s writing provides readers with insightful analysis and unique perspectives on the industry.