Hawaii Green Laser Beam Not From NASA's ICESat-2 ATLAS But China's Daqi-1's ACDL

Last week, green lights were spotted in Hawaii and previous reports claimed it was from NASA. However, a new report suggests that it's impossible that the ominous laser beams were from the American space agency due to the trajectory of satellites.

NASA Not The Source of Ominous Green Lights in Hawaii

On Jan. 28, bizarre green lights were on full display in the skies of Hawaii. Initially, the experts at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), which co-owns the camera, announced on Twitter that the source was a radar device of an orbiting satellite known as ICESat-2, which is owned by NASA. The satellite keeps an eye on the thickness of the Earth's sea ice, ice sheets and forests.

However, on Feb. 6, a new report came from NAOJ after they updated the footage of the laser beam. They apologized and said that based on the trajectory, the source of the laser beam was unlikely NASA.

Dr. Martino, Anthony J., a NASA scientist working on ICESat-2 ATLAS, told NAOJ that the source was not their instrument. His colleague, Dr. Alvaro Ivanoff, did a simulation and suggested that the potential source is the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite's ACDL instrument, Science Alert reported.

NAOJ apologized for the confusion and its potential impact on the ICESat-2 team. They were appreciative of NASA's effort in identifying the source of the light.

About Daqi-1 Satellite

Daqi-1 is an atmospheric monitoring satellite developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation in Shanghai.

It is designed to be a comprehensive monitoring of the atmospheric environment and operates in a sun-synchronous orbit. It combines passive and active sensing for comprehensive monitoring.

Daqi-1 can monitor fine particle pollution like PM2.5, pollutant gases, including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone, and carbon dioxide concentration. China aims to produce a series of Daqi satellites to provide remote sensing data support for environmental authorities and scientific research on global climate change.

A China Long March 4C rocket launched the Daqi-1 mission on April 15, 2022, according to Rocket Launch. It is equipped with five remote sensing instruments, including atmospheric detection lidar, a high-precision polarization scanner, a multi-angle polarization imager, an ultraviolet hyperspectral atmospheric composition detector and wide-field imaging spectrometer to improve global carbon monitoring and atmospheric pollution monitoring.

Here are the five instruments.

• ACDL (Aerosol and Carbon dioxide Detection Lidar)
• DPC-II (Directional Polarimetric Camera)
• EMI-II (Environmental Trace Gas Monitoring Instrument)
• POSP (Particulate Observing Scanning Polarization)
• WSI (Wide Spectral Imager)

About ICESat-2 Satellite

NASAs ICESat-2 is similar to China's Daqi-1 satellite because it is also used for monitoring. It measures the changes on Earth's surface using one laser pulse at a time or 10,000 laser pulses a second.

Its ATLAS instrument can detect individual photons, allowing scientists to measure the height of ice sheets, sea ice, and forests with unprecedented precision.

NASA's Earth science research focuses heavily on the cryosphere or the icy regions of Earth, and ICESat-2 helps them investigate it, especially during the current warming climate.

ATLAS is equipped with a single laser that splits into six beams and is arranged in three pairs for improved surface measurement. It is precisely timed so that photons are detected and returned to the receiver telescope.

The technology enables ATLAS to measure every 28 inches of the surface along the satellite's trajectory. ICESat-2 advances the laser technology of its predecessor ICESat, which was launched in 2003 and was operational until 2009.

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