Originally, experts at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), which co-owns the camera,
announced on Twitter that the green light probably came from a radar device on an orbiting satellite,
known as ICESat-2. ICESat-2 is
owned by NASA, and it's used to keep an eye on the thickness of Earth's sea ice, ice sheets, and forests.
But on 6 February 2022, NAOJ updated their footage of the laser beam saying that based on the trajectory, it was unlikely to be NASA after all.
"According to Dr. Martino, Anthony J., a NASA scientist working on ICESat-2 ATLAS, it is not by their instrument but by others," a 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." China's Daqi-1 satellite was
launched in April last year and similar to ICESat-2, it's an atmospheric environment monitoring satellite. That means it's in orbit around Earth in order to monitor global carbon levels, as well as atmospheric pollution.