by disco stu » Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:28 am
I asked around at work, and one guy who is well versed on things was talking about how if you watch your shadow when in a plane from take off, it will be a shadow that gets smaller and smaller, then it will turn into a white/light dot that will get bigger and bigger as you go up in altitude. He can't remember what its called, but its from the light bending around the object, in that case an aircraft. Not sure if its refraction or what. I assume it is then seen on cloud or certain layer depending on atmospheric conditions, as he said he has seen it happen in helicopters at only a few thousand feet.
In this case it would seem, if this is the explanation, that the sun is on a fairly close angle to the sensor hence the "refracted" image is fairly close.
Best I can come up with, but thought you may like to look into that one a bit more