A camera atop Hawaii’s tallest mountain has captured what appears to be a spiral spiraling across the night sky.
Researchers believe the strange phenomenon is related to a military GPS satellite launched by a SpaceX rocket in Florida.
The images were captured Jan. 18 by a camera atop Mauna Kea, outside the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s Subaru Telescope.
A time-lapse video shows a white orb spreading and forming a spiral as it moves across the sky. Then it fades and disappears.
Ichi Tanaka, a researcher at the observatory, said he was doing other work that night and did not see it immediately. A stargazer watching the live feed from the YouTube camera then sent him a screenshot of the helix using an online messaging platform.
“When I opened Slack, that’s what I saw, and it was an overwhelming event for me,” Tanaka said. He saw a similar spiral last April, also after a SpaceX launch, but it was larger and fainter.
SpaceX launched a military satellite on the morning of January 18 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The location of the spiral coincided with where the second stage of the SpaceX rocket was expected to be after its launch.
SpaceX did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Tanaka said the observatory installed the camera to observe the surroundings outside the Subaru Telescope and share images of Mauna Kea’s clear sky. Someone observing the sky in less clear conditions, such as from Tokyo, might not have seen the spiral, he said.
The live broadcast is co-run with the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun and often draws hundreds of viewers. Some people tune in to watch meteors.
The summit of Mauna Kea has some of the best viewing conditions on Earth for astronomy, making it a preferred location for the world’s most advanced observatories. The peak is also considered sacred by many native Hawaiians, who see it as a place where the gods live.
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