Bizarre ‘whirlpool’ appears in night sky above Hawaii - The Guardian

A camera on top of Hawaii’s tallest mountain has captured what looks like a spiral swirling through the night sky.

Researchers believe the strange phenomenon is linked to a military GPS satellite that launched from a SpaceX rocket in Florida.

The images were captured on 18 January by a camera at the summit of Mauna Kea, outside the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s Subaru telescope.

Then a stargazer watching the camera’s livestream on YouTube sent him a screenshot of the spiral using an online messaging platform.

SpaceX launched a military satellite on the morning of 18 January from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Tanaka said the observatory installed the camera to monitor the surroundings outside the Subaru telescope and to share images of Mauna Kea’s clear skies.