Joe McNally/Getty Images A camera atop Hawaii’s tallest mountain has captured what looks like a spiral swirling through the night sky. Researchers believe it was from the launch of a military GPS satellite that lifted off earlier on a SpaceX rocket in Florida. Stream Los Angeles News for free, 24/7, wherever you are. WATCH HERE The images were captured on Jan. 18 by a camera at the summit of Mauna Kea outside the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru telescope. A time-lapse video shows a white orb spreading out and forming a spiral as it moves across the sky. It then fades and disappears. Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning with NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter. SIGN UP Ichi Tanaka, a researcher at the Subaru telescope, said he was doing other work that night and didn't immediately see it. Then a stargazer watching the camera's livestream on YouTube sent him a screenshot of the spiral using an online messaging platform. “When I opened Slack, that is what I saw and it was a jaw-dropping event for me,” Tanaka said. He saw a similar spiral last April, also after a SpaceX launch, but that one was larger and more faint. U.S. & World