A mysterious plume of material reaching high into the Martian atmosphere has scientists buzzing about the Red Planet and they have amateur astronomers to thank for spotting the baffling feature.

Wayne Jaeschke is a patent lawyer by day, but most nights, you can find him in his observatory, pointing a telescope skyward. In March 2012, Jaeschke spotted what looked like a dust cloud popping off the surface of Mars. Two years later, he is a co-author on a scientific paper investigating thenature of the perplexing Mars plumes.

"You know, 999,999,999 times out of a million, when the amateur astronomers see something in an astronomical photo, the professionals have seen it as well, or they have a theory for explaining it," Jaeschke said. "But this is a rare case where no one has been able to explain it." [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

Jaeschke started observing the sky when he was just a kid. He learned about the cosmos from a family friend who went on to lead the astronomy department at Stanford University. Though he never pursued astronomy as a career, over the years, it grew into a serious hobby.

"About 10 years ago, I started to image the planets on a daily basis," Jaeschke said.

Thanks to the reduced cost of high-quality cameras, data storage, photo editing software and, of course, quality telescopes amateur astronomers like Jaeschke can take high-quality sky images every night, and gradually build up huge volumes of data.

Over the years, Jaeschke has built up an email list of both amateur and professional astronomers who want to hear about his work.

"The more data you produce, the more people get interested particularly professionals, because they can't look at [the planets] all the time," Jaeschke said (even the fleet of orbiting satellites around Mars can't watch every inch of the Red Planet all the time). "So, they turn to the amateur community."

Professional astronomers can use these daily photographs to do things like monitor daily changes in a planet's weather, he said. In some instances, professionals and amateurs collaborate on targeted observations.

On the night of March 19, 2012, Jaeschke was taking images of Mars per his usual routine, when he noticed "a little blob" on the side of the planet. He assumed it was a technical issue perhaps a problem with one of the monitors, or even just a speck of dust on one of the lenses.

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Mysterious Mars Plume Discovery Is Amateur Astronomy at Its Best