Mysterious 'orb' captured soaring past sun in new NASA video sparks theories of UFOs
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NASA has released a new video of Earth's sun, capturing a giant 'orb' soaring past the blazing star.
The footage has gone viral, with conspiracy theorists claiming the giant object is a UFO, pointing to how it 'stopped, hovered for a bit, moved closer to the sun,' and then vanished from sight.
'I guess we'll just have to settle for no answers — and watch this get swept under the rug, just like the obvious UAPs we see every day,' a user posted on X.
Others suggested the cosmic event caused the massive power outage plaguing Spain, France and Portugal.
However, the footage showed the moon eclipsing the sun in a 'lunar transit' only visible in space.
On Sunday, the moon blocked 23 percent of the sun in a partial eclipse, only seen by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which is currently studying Earth's star.
The video captured the moon as a dark spot in the frame, moving in front of the fiery sun. Another clip from NOAA shows the moon as a glowing orb traveling at high speeds through space.
NASA's SDO also captured details of lunar mountains on the moon's surface, as it collected footage of the event.
The footage has gone viral, with conspiracy theorists claiming the giant object is a UFO , pointing to how it 'stopped, hovered for a bit, moved closer to the sun ,' and then vanished from sight
A lunar transit is different from a solar eclipse. Instead of being seen from Earth, a lunar transit happens when a spacecraft, like NASA's SDO, captures the moon passing in front of the sun or another object it's observing.
During these events, the moon appears as a dark circle moving across the bright surface being monitored by the observatory — a sight that has sometimes been mistaken for a UFO near the sun.
The most recent lunar transit lasted about 30 minutes and will be followed by more on April 28, May 25, and July 25.
According to NASA, during the final transit in this series, the Moon will cover 62 percent of the Sun's surface.
In contrast, the next solar eclipse visible from Earth is scheduled for September 21, 2025, but it will only be seen from parts of New Zealand, the South Pacific, and Antarctica.
NASA's SDO has been observing the Sun for 15 years, having launched on February 11, 2010.
Its mission is to continuously monitor the sun, taking high-resolution images and videos of the Sun's surface and atmosphere.
SDO studies solar activity, such as sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), to help scientists better understand how the Sun impacts space weather around Earth.
The video captured the moon as a dark spot in the frame, moving in front of the fiery sun
During these events, the moon appears as a dark circle moving across the bright surface being monitored by the observatory — a sight that has sometimes been mistaken for a UFO near the sun
SDO stays relatively close to Earth and continuously sends back detailed images of the sun.
Earlier this month, the spacecraft captured powerful solar flares erupting from the sun's surface.
A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of Earth's magnetic field, caused by a massive burst of plasma from the sun's outer layer.
Shortly after the storm peaked, more than 1.4 million people in Puerto Rico lost power on April 16, as the entire island was plunged into darkness.
Local power authorities reported a system-wide failure around 12:40pm local, coinciding with the peak intensity of the geomagnetic storm.
Dr Tamitha Skov, an independent space weather physicist, told DailyMail.com that the blackout occurred almost simultaneously with the storm's intensification to G4 levels — classified as 'severe' on a five-level scale from G1 to G5.
A G4 geomagnetic storm can cause serious disruptions by generating geomagnetically induced currents (GICs), which overload transformers and critical infrastructure within power grids.
Officials had warned that such a storm could interfere with electricity management systems, potentially triggering automatic shutdowns across parts of the network to protect it from damage.
Josué Colón, Puerto Rico's energy chief and former executive director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, explained that while only one generator should have switched to protective mode, the entire system shut down after a failure in the transmission network.
'This added stress from GICs likely worsened an already fragile system, especially with power usage near peak levels in the middle of the day,' Dr. Skov added.
Daily Mail
