Comment on this storyA Japanese telescope spotted a glowing, whirlpool-like formation spinning through the night sky above a volcano in Hawaii earlier this month, shortly after SpaceX launched a navigation satellite into orbit.

“The Subaru-Asahi Star Camera captured a mysterious flying spiral,” tweeted the Subaru Telescope, which is mounted in Hawaii, from its English account on Jan. 20.

Flying over the dormant Mauna Kea volcano on Jan. 18, the formation first appeared as a small, soaring white object before emitting an arc-like wave and slowly spanning out into a spiral.

At about 7:24 a.m. that day, SpaceX launched a global-positioning satellite into medium orbit using a Falcon 9 rocket that took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Similarly, a glowing swirl was photographed by the Subaru Telescope above Hawaii in April after a Falcon 9 rocket launched a satellite into orbit.

Last week, the telescope also spotted long, flickering beams of green light in the sky, which are thought to have come from a remote-sensing laser from another satellite.