Perfectly shaped spiral appears over 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 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.

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 (https://twitter.com/SubaruTel_Eng/status/1616178989118144512).