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STEREO (Behind) watched over a 48-hour period (April 23-25, 2010) as a substantial coronal hole (the much darker area) rotated towards solar center, while three small coronal mass ejections erupted from active regions near it
Cosmic rays are very high energy particles which come from a variety of sources (e.g. solar flares, supernovae). They are of interest to lots of astronomers, but mostly just noise for us. We see lots of them in every image and occasionally, 3 or 4 of them hit the CCD in just the right places in consecutive images to fool us into believing there is a real object there. The cosmic rays can show up as points or as streaks. (helios.gsfc.nasa.gov...). Click on the image below to see typical examples of cosmic rays visible in LASCO images.
Originally posted by Phage
The image you posted does not match the video, the surface of the Sun looks completely different.
Here is that video:
stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov...
In any case, planets do not appear in the full disk images because the Sun is too bright for them to show.
What you are seeing is the result of cosmic rays striking the sensor. You can see many examples in the video above.
Cosmic rays are very high energy particles which come from a variety of sources (e.g. solar flares, supernovae). They are of interest to lots of astronomers, but mostly just noise for us. We see lots of them in every image and occasionally, 3 or 4 of them hit the CCD in just the right places in consecutive images to fool us into believing there is a real object there. The cosmic rays can show up as points or as streaks. (helios.gsfc.nasa.gov...). Click on the image below to see typical examples of cosmic rays visible in LASCO images.
sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil...
stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov...
[edit on 7/7/2010 by Phage]