Screenshots taken of the sun in Rust have occasionally shown an object like a distant planet or a small moon.
It’s described as being so small that if observed at night it would appear as a bright star. As sightings of it have been rare, it has been referred to as The Mysterious Planet. Two of the only screenshots of it were taken to capture solar eclipses, giving rise to the theory that it could be a submoon. As a potential planet, it matches Venus in both its apparent size and the rarity of its transits.
One player claims that the object was added to the game with the 1st June 2023 update, which may explain the mystery, as the update included a reticle for the binoculars. Were we looking at the reticle all along, or is The Mysterious Planet still out there?