In a report published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, French and Dutch scientists have said that the March 2011 earthquake which rocked Japan was so powerful that its impact was felt by an orbiting satellite approximately 270km above the Earth.

Noting that the impact of the tremors of the massive magnitude-9 earthquake was not felt across Japan alone, the scientists said in the report that the low-frequency sound - infrasound - of the catastrophic jolt was also picked up by the European Space Agency (ESA)'s hyper-sensitive GOCE gravity satellite soon after the quake.

Elaborating further about the satellite's detection of sound waves of the March 11, 2011, earthquake, the scientists said that the passing of the satellite through the sound waves caused its accelerometers to sense the vertical displacements of the surrounding atmosphere in a manner comparable to seismometers on the surface of Earth.

About the detection of the 2011 earthquake's sound waves by the GOCE gravity satellite - which was launched in 2009 to map the Earth's gravity -, the ESA said in an explanation on its website that the seismic waves caused by a massive earthquake not only travel through Earth's interior, but also cause a drum-like vibration of the planet's surface.

Commenting on the findings reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Raphael Garcia - from the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology - said: "With this new tool they can start to look up into space to understand what is going on under their feet."