Late last month, mysterious green laser beams were spotted from Hawaii’s tallest peak. Experts initially said the burst of laser beams was emitted by a NASA spacecraft though that was proven incorrect this week — with evidence pointing to a Chinese satellite.
Space experts at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) initially tweeted on Jan. 30 that the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera “captured green laser lights in the cloudy sky over Maunakea, Hawai’i. The lights are thought to be from a remote-sensing altimeter satellite ICESAT-2/43613.”
But on Feb. 6, one week later, NAOJ issued a correction on YouTube that specified the laser beams weren’t from a US spacecraft but the “most likely candidate” was a “Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite.”
“According to Dr. Martino, Anthony J., a NASA scientist working on ICESat-2 ATLAS, it is not by their instrument but by others,” a correction note on the YouTube video explains.
“His colleagues, Dr. Alvaro Ivanoff et al., did a simulation of the trajectory of satellites that have a similar instrument and found a most likely candidate as the ACDL instrument by the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite.
“We really appreciate their efforts in the identification of the light. We are sorry about our confusion related to this event and its potential impact on the ICESat-2 team.” Here’s the video of the Chinese satellite firing bursts of lasers toward Earth. (SOURCE)
