@ryanjyoder Do you mean in the 'north-west' (top left) of the ring of light? I'd assume an irregularity in the Earth's surface - similar to the effect of Baily's beads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baily%27s_beads) in the case of when the moon eclipses the sun.

@coreyspowell

@ryanjyoder @zeborah @coreyspowell

If you consider that the earth is far from round, it's reasonable.

@deirdrebeth @ryanjyoder @zeborah @coreyspowell Viewed from the surface of the Moon, the Earth is a little more than three times the apparent diameter of the Sun. See the pic below – it is a simulated view from the surface of the Moon about two hours before totality (so the entire disk of the Sun can be seen).

The light at the upper left in the Blue Ghost pic is not a bit of sun peeking through mountains (as you get with Bailey's Beads during a solar eclipse)–the Earth is too smooth (relatively) to produce such a pronounced effect. The ring of light that you see around the Earth is due to refraction of sunlight as it passes through our atmosphere. Red light gets bent the most, *and* the violet end of the spectrum is scattered by the atmosphere, so you get reddish light lighting up the Moon.

What determines the bright and dim regions around the ring is probably mostly atmospheric clarity - places where there are no clouds will be bright, places with some weather will be dim/dark.

@Annaspanner @deirdrebeth @zeborah @coreyspowell

Based on @MichaelPorter excellent answer here, I think we can rule out solar flares (I think...). Since the apparent size of the earth is so much larger compared to the sun, I don't think you could see solar flares.