Dying SpaceX rocket creates a 'night spiral' above Hawaii

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, April 8, 2022. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Over Hawaii, a decaying SpaceX rocket stage created a unique "night spiral."

The Subaru Telescope recorded video of the "flying whirlpool" over Mauna Kea on Sunday, hours after a California-based Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office into orbit, according to SpaceWeather.com.

The spacecraft's activities and cargo are classified.

The footage was originally captured by the Subaru-Asahi Sky Camera, which is a collaboration project between Subaru and the Asahi-Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper.

According to SpaceX footage, the first stage of the Falcon 9 booster is reusable, and it landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.

The top stage of the Falcon 9 is not reusable, and after delivering the spacecraft to its allotted orbit, it burned up naturally in the atmosphere.

According to CNN, the number of active satellites has multiplied from about 1,000 in 2017 to more than 5,000 today.

In December 2021, a report in The Astronomical Journal predicted that one out of every 15 spots of light in the night sky will be a moving satellite in less than a decade - painting a dire picture about the future of satellite pollution.

SpaceX is responsible for almost a third of all operational satellites in orbit, more than any other corporation or country, including the U.S. government.

SpaceX has already launched more than 2,000 satellites and plans to launch at least 42,000 more as part of its Starlink mega-constellation. Amazon's Project Kuiper and London-based OneWeb are two more distant contenders.