Interesting image today from NASA:

[Minstrel Boy]

This is the latest image of the sun snapped by NASA's Soho Lasco Cam, which monitors the corona from space:



It usually looks something like that.

Now, look at the image stamped 2005/02/02 15:18:



Whoa - what the heck just happened there? A comet doesn't look anything like that on the cam; nothing natural I know would behave like that, and at such apparent speed. Or is it a camera glitch?

[sui generis]

1. not a rocket scientist or anything but

wouldn't it have to be about the size of a planet and moving at some significant percent of the speed of light to create that effect?

I think Occam's razor might be worth using on this one . . . plus how is software compensating this image? It looks "pinwheeled", so something is doing some sort of filtering anyway, plus it has some qualities of a reflection, which would put it clear on the other side of the sun at the reflection point.

[Minstrel Boy]

3. The qualities of a reflection

are what grabbed my attention.

I'm all for the more reasonable explanation.

[thinkingwoman]

2. it's planet x

just ask the planet x folks all over the net. It just whizzed by the sun and it's headed our way! ;-)

[Minstrel Boy]

4. I can't think of "Planet X" without thinking of "Plan 9."

"Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future."

[thinkingwoman]

8. LOL

"future events such as these will affect you in the future."

LOL

That is so true.

[zbdent]

5. Looks like a CD from

Blue Man Group to me . . .

[Ganja Ninja]

6. It has to be some sort of object.

I don’t know if you can call it a reflection. It does seem to have depth to it. Note how the trail of light is smaller the farther away it gets. Like looking a at railroad track as it runs off into the distance. It had to be an object that went by during a timed exposure.

[hootinholler]

12. Also the luminosity...

Changes as it moves through the field.

I'm assuming this is a 180 lense?

-Hoot

[XNASA]

7. Chronosynclastic Infidibulum

Obviously.

[Beetwasher]

9. It's The Nexxus!!!! Someone Call Whoopi Goldberg and Bill Shatner!

QUICK!

[GregW]

10. It's a hyperspace bypass

Look! Here comes the Vogon construction fleet!

[hunter]

11. "Rails Across the Galaxy"

by Andrew Offutt & Richard Lyon
Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact
August, 1982
Cover by Kelly Freas