The Kilauea volcano’s lava looked like a smiley face but stars, craters and spiders have also resembled the popular symbol for happiness

An erupting volcano in Hawaii was all smiles last week – and no, it wasn’t a Disney animation.

The lava of Kilauea, a shield volcano on Hawaii’s biggest island, appeared to form a smiley face as it erupted. The volcano has been active since 1983, with lava emerging from the Pu‘u ‘O‘o vent. As the smile appeared, lava from the volcano reached the Pacific Ocean for the first time in three years, according to CNN.

The video was taken from a helicopter by Mick Kalber of Tropical Visions Video last Tuesday.

This wasn’t the first time such a symbol has been found in nature.

Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) When you're a volcano but also need a new profile pic pic.twitter.com/zVEdEOJdv4

Last year, the Hubble telescope found a smiling galaxy cluster. The cluster, SDSS J1038+4849, appears to have two orange eyes and a nose. The smile came from something called gravitational lensing which distorts light, according to Nasa.

In 1999, the Mars Orbiter Camera captured a smiling crater on its camera. The Galle Crater, nicknamed the “happy face” crater, has a diameter of about 134 miles.

The happy face spider, native to Hawaii, is nearly transparent but appears to have a face on its abdomen. The markings look like raised eyebrows, tiny eyes and a large, gaping grin.

The Galle Crater, nicknamed the ‘ happy face’ crater, has a diameter of about 134 miles. Photograph: Nasa

In a posting on eBay, one person is attempting to sell a smiley face geode. “I do not know anything about geode, so I do not what kind this is other than a Happy one,” the seller wrote.

Studies have shown that it’s easy for the human brain to find faces in things, as the popular Twitter account of the same name exemplifies. It chronicles some of them on its feed, in things like moccasins or a motorcycle engine. Seeing faces in rock formations is fairly common.

A man recently found a tree that looks like Donald Trump. “Perhaps it’s a warning about who could become president in November,” Jon Rowley, the photographer, told the Daily Mail.