>On Sept. 16, 2022, motion-sensing cameras set up by museum curator Daichi Fujii to capture meteors instead caught the laser beams of NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite as it passed over Japan.
>It’s the first time the ICESat-2 team has seen footage of the satellite’s green laser beams streaming from orbit to Earth, said Tony Martino, ICESat-2 instrument scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
>“ICESat-2 appeared to be almost directly overhead of him, with the beam hitting the low clouds at an angle,” Martino said. “To see the laser, you have to be in the exact right place, at the right time, and you have to have the right conditions.”
>On the night ICESat-2 passed over Fuji City, however, there were enough clouds to scatter the laser light – making it visible to the cameras – but not so many clouds that they blocked the light altogether.
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Excerpt from the linked content:^1,2
>On Sept. 16, 2022, motion-sensing cameras set up by museum curator Daichi Fujii to capture meteors instead caught the laser beams of NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite as it passed over Japan.
>It’s the first time the ICESat-2 team has seen footage of the satellite’s green laser beams streaming from orbit to Earth, said Tony Martino, ICESat-2 instrument scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
>“ICESat-2 appeared to be almost directly overhead of him, with the beam hitting the low clouds at an angle,” Martino said. “To see the laser, you have to be in the exact right place, at the right time, and you have to have the right conditions.”
>On the night ICESat-2 passed over Fuji City, however, there were enough clouds to scatter the laser light – making it visible to the cameras – but not so many clouds that they blocked the light altogether.
^1 Kate Ramsayer (14 Apr. 2023), “That’s no meteor: NASA satellite’s elusive green lasers spotted at work”, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/thats-no-meteor-nasa-satellites-elusive-green-lasers-spotted-at-work/
^2 Video credits: Daichi Fujii, Hiratsuka City Museum.