The Subaru Telescope captured video of a mysterious, glowing swirl above Hawaii on April 17, 2022.

The Subaru Telescope captured video of a mysterious, glowing swirl above Hawaii on April 17, 2022. (Image credit: Subaru Telescope)

The night spiral over Hawaii was created by a dying rocket stage.

SpaceWeather.com termed the video of the flying whirlpool captured by the Subaru Telescope on Sunday (April 17) a "flying whirlpool" after a California-based rocket successfully launched a spy satellite into space.

The spy satellite was launched by SpaceX. The NROL-85 satellite lifted off at 9:13 a.m., capping the Falcon 9 rocket. The activity of the vehicle was classified from the Space Force Base in California.

The video shows the characteristic spiral caused by the post-deorbit-burn fuel vent of the Falcon 9 upper stage, which was deorbited over the Pacific just after the end of the 1st revolution.

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The first stage of the Falcon 9 booster successfully landed on top of a ship in the Pacific. The upper stage of Falcon 9 is not able to be recycled, and after sending the spaceship out to its assigned location, that stage fell back into the atmosphere.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan operates the Subaru Telescope, which is located in Hawaii. The facility is located at 13,579 feet in altitude.

Most of the staff works remotely and only a few people stay on site to operate the telescope due to the thin atmosphere.

The Sky Camera is an outreach camera project in collaboration with the Asahi-Shimbun, a large Japanese newspaper. The project started in 2021.

The article was published on LiveScience.