A massive methane leak that was visible from space, and NASA said it was the first time they've ever observed such a leak from miles above the Earth.

When NASA aircraft and satellites flew over the Aliso Canyon methane leak in January, they were able to detect the gas leaking from deep beneath a mountain near Porter Ranch, California, a new study has revealed. , published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, confirm just how large the greenhouse gas's leak was.

“This is the first time the methane emissions from a single facility ,” scientist and study co-author David R. Thompson said in a NASA release. “The percentage of atmospheric methane produced through human activities remains poorly understood. Future instruments with much greater sensitivity on orbiting satellites can help resolve this question by surveying the biggest sources around the world, so that we can better understand and address this unknown factor in greenhouse gas emissions.”

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These two images, acquired in January, show methane plumes over Aliso Canyon, California, as seen by NASA's high-altitude spacecraft and satellites.

(NASA-JPL/Caltech/GSFC)

To observe the leak, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center repurposed the Earth Observing-1 satellite, a 16-year-old spacecraft , according to the Los Angeles Daily News. EO-1 was brought back to life because Hyperion Imaging Spectrometer can "see" in methane-detecting wavelengths, Thompson told the Daily News.

The authors of the study are hopeful that the findings will spur the development of better methane-detecting technology that'll help scientists better understand where the planet's biggest methane leaks are located, the report added. After all, methane is even more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide– over a 100-year period, methane with regards to climate change, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“This gives us confidence that our measurement strategy is correct. I think that ultimately what we’re all driving towards is understanding the human portion of the global methane budget,” Thompson told the L.A. Daily News. “I think that orbital observations can contribute to that understanding.”

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: The Aliso Canyon Methane Leak

In this Nov. 3, 2015, file photo, provided by Southern California Gas Co., SoCalGas crews and technical experts attempt to safely stop the flow of natural gas leaking from a storage well at the utility’s Aliso Canyon facility near the Northridge section of Los Angeles. (Javier Mendoza/SoCalGas via AP)