An eerily-perfect “whirlpool” of light in the shape of a spiral galaxy briefly appeared in the night sky above Hawaii.

But what was it?

It turns out the stunning spiral was comprised of frozen rocket fuel that was ejected during a SpaceX launch.

A video(opens in new tab) of the ethereal light show was captured Jan. 18 by the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera — co-owned by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and Japanese news agency Asahi Shimbun — attached to the Subaru telescope on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island. In the sped-up footage, a small blob of light unfurls into a perfect glowing whirlpool that moves across the sky for several minutes before fading away into nothingness.

“The spiral seems to be related to the SpaceX company’s launch of a new satellite,” NAOJ representatives wrote on Twitter(opens in new tab).

source livescience.com