Ichi Tanaka, a researcher working on the Subaru telescope, was busy with other work that night and did not notice how
“When I opened the picture, the object that I saw was an amazing event for me,” said Tanaka.
On Twitter, the observatory shared an image of the cosmic pool and posted a video showing the spiral formation flying over the Mauna Kea volcano and then dissipating.
Subaru Telescope
"The Subaru-Asahi Star Camera capturedmysterious flying spiral over Maunakea, Hawaii,” Subaru Telescope tweeted on Jan. 19. "The spiral appears to be related to SpaceX's launch of a new satellite."
The launch took place from Cape Canaveral, Florida.but satellite tracker Scott Tilly responded to the tweet by stating that the location of the spiral over Hawaii exactly matched the location of the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket at the time.
This is exactly the part of the rocket that takes the satellite into Earth's orbit after the launch vehicle (the first stage) separates and falls back to Earth.
SpaceWeather.com, which tracks sightings of such phenomena, has suggested that the mysterious spiral was caused by the fuel dumping of the Falcon 9's first stage during descent.
This is not the first time since the launch of SpaceX inthe sky notice a spiral. Following a launch in Florida in June 2022, a similar spiral was seen over Queenstown, New Zealand, according to The Washington Post.
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