All those streaks of white on the image are sunlight reflecting of shiny objects on the ground such as car sun-roofs and windscreens. Its basically the satellite picking up the glare from them.

Try downloading Google Earth as well, you can get the objects much larger.

There is also a couple aircraft that have those streaks stemming from them.

As well as other objects all over the world.

I don't know about reflection being the case, as I see this glitch in objects that have no reflective surface.

My opinion, and of reading others: just a rendering glitch, that satellites are known for. There's a lot processes of getting pics of the Earth taken by a sat, and then getting those pics back to Earth and produced. More processes = more glitches.

Edit to add: Even with a simple SLR camera, glitches just as this can often be seen, I'm sure I have some photo's from my camera days that have this (et'similar).

Misfit

[edit on 25/9/06 by Misfit]