HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) — The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea last week captured video of a mysterious light over Hawaii. And it wasn’t a bird, a plane… or a UFO.
It turns out the so-called “flying spiral” is actually a new satellite that was launched earlier today by SpaceX.
SpaceX sent a global positioning satellite into space for the US Space Force on Wednesday.
“The spiral appears to be related to the launch of a new satellite by SpaceX Corporation,” officials from the Subaru Telescope at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan wrote in a tweet.
Satellite tracker Scott Tilley also
on the wire and said the location of the spiral closely matched where SpaceX’s second-stage Falcon 9 rocket was expected to be within minutes of launch.Fuel vent from the F9 2nd stage from the NAVSTAR 82 (USA 343) [55268, 2023-009A] launch. The payload orbital elements propagated back reveal a very close match around 2023-01-18T14:40 UTC. pic.twitter.com/UmcStuWj2L
— Scott Tilley 🇺🇦 (@coastal8049) January 20, 2023
Officials say this isn’t the first time a similar glowing circular feature has been spotted after a SpaceX launch.
People in places
saw such spirals overhead after Falcon 9 activity.SpaceX rocket lit up New Zealand's sky with a crazy blue spiral (photo) https://t.co/8st3eNQSzf pic.twitter.com/dBQjnsUhoR
— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) June 22, 2022
In other similar SpaceX satellite occurrences, space watchers have said the spiral shape appears when the upper stage of Falcon 9’s vents release fuel during its long descent into the ocean.
Officials say SpaceX sent five missions into space in the first 19 days of 2023.
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. A strange spiral flying spotted by telescope Mauna Kea
