No. The effect I'm looking for comes with the game, though it's only seen in modmissions.
If you open up the mission editor and add an object, from the drop down menu you can select various things (ship, navpoint, fleet entry, etc). It's currently hiding in there.
The effect itself is a small orange sphere with 'spikey' bits that appear to wave and move and a black interior. It comes in two parts, the first or 'In' section (the bit I'm interested in) sucks in ships that get too close (similar to the nexus wormhole) and chucks them out at the second part (or 'Out', if you like).
They're kind of like tactical shortcuts to cover large distances if the scene's planned out well.