UFO in my screensaver - NASA ISS007-E-16249

Apologies in advance if this has been covered before, I did a search before posting, but this screensaver image has been bugging me for a couple of years now.

One of my screensaver images, preinstalled with Gnome on Linux, shows the Earth horizon from near space with a grey-coloured cigar-shaped UFO in the top-right.

I did a reverse image search on Google and it appears that the image is photograph ISS007-E-16249 taken on 4th October 2003 by an Expedition 7 crewmember onboard the International Space Station.

Here's the page on NASA's website. Click the 'high res' link on the page to see the UFO in the top-right:

spaceflight.nasa.gov...

Zooming in on the object, it appears to encompass the full spectrum of visible light with red on top, then orange, yellow, green and blue.

I'm guessing it's a lens artifact of some kind. I don't think it's lens flare or a reflection of the Earth because it's on a skewed angle in relation to the Earth, but then I'm no expert on such things.

Thought it was interesting anyway. Discuss or discard at your leisure

reply to post by wemadetheworld

You mean the light reflection?
How about from inside, reflected on the glass?

Actually it appears to be "lens flare". The next image in the series
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by wemadetheworld

One of my screensaver images, preinstalled with Gnome on Linux, shows the Earth horizon from near space with a grey-coloured cigar-shaped UFO in the top-right.

I'm sorry I might be out of topic because I've got nothing to say about the ufo part but I have to say that the pic is just breathtaking. I ended up using it as a screensaver myself

Thanks for posting it

reply to post by Telos

Now you're going to have to decide...
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

Even better

i would say some kind of light abberation. cool pic though

Originally posted by Phage
Actually it appears to be "lens flare". The next image in the series
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

edit on 8/2/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Yeah, clearly the next image exhibits a more extreme example of lens flare, but does appear to have the same underlying characteristics; the red and blue spectra above and below the object, and a faint circular aura spread around the object.

The object in my original image does seem to be off-center though. If you draw a perpendicular line through the object then the line doesn't pass through the exact center of the image, but I guess the image could have been cropped.

I guess it's most likely a really low-key example of lens flare.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Telos

 

Now you're going to have to decide...
eol.jsc.nasa.gov...

Thanks Phage, that's MY screensaver now