Got a few ideas, need to sketch them but at the moment I'm torn between working in Max or maya.
If I'm gonna go for something involving alot of gassious/ fluidic effects I'll use maya, however my GI and mats are much better using Max with Vray.

Gonna go with the Space anomoly idea.

heres a couple of brief scenes I've thought of.

1. Space, close to a burning red star, a vortex swirls dangerously close, sucking the gasses and matter off the star.

2. A mars like planets surface, shot from the perspective of a probe (beagle?), some kind of energy ribbon in the lower atmosphere