"Ghost image" ingrained in my Macbook pro screen

I use a Macbook Pro laptop, and today I noticed something odd with the screen that is hardly noticeable, but still an eyesore. When I'm on a webpage with a lot of black or watching a movie that is very dark I can see what appears to be a faint outline looking almost like a semi-circle in the center of my screen. At first I thought it was a smudge on my screen, but I couldn't clean it off.

I was traveling today, so I figure something must have knocked into my laptop bag when the bus was in motion, therefore messing something up in the screen. I tried to take a photo and a screen cap, but the image was too faint to make out. But it's there, and could be a potential problem due to the fact that I'm a graphic designer.

Any information on what the problem may be or any help on how to fix it are greatly appreciated!

You need to determine if it's something to do with the graphics or actual damage to the screen. Take a screenshot and see if it shows up there. If it does, it has something to do with the GPU. If it's damage to the screen, there's not much you can do except replace it.

How old is your MBP?

I have an old Dell LCD which suffers from image persistance. I actually made a ROYGBIV set of pictures and cycle through them to reset the crystals. See this article
LCD Image Persistence

chscag - I took another screen shot, but the ghost image didn't show up. It probably is something with the screen. I know traveling can be tough on laptops (My old laptop got trashed on a Greyhound bus once), so something along the way probably messed the screen up.

IvanLasston - My Macbook is a little over 2 years old now. I checked out the site about image persistence, but I'm not sure if that's what it is. I've never had a design like the ghost image on any windows before, and there's no indication that any of my desktop icons left an imprint on my screen. I did have my laptop on for quite a while, though, so I shut it off overnight hoping the ghost image would disappear, but it's still there, very faint in the background.

One last test - is to connect to an external monitor. If it doesn't show up there then it may be physical damage to the screen. If it does show up - it may be a graphics card/driver issue.

2 years old - it isn't image persistence. My Dell LCD monitor is over 10 years old now - and the persistence thing started happening this year.

@Ivan:

If it doesn't show up on a screen shot, (see his response to me) hooking an external monitor is redundant. He's definitely got some screen damage or abnormality of some sort.

You are probably right chscag - I was just thinking if it was a hardware problem, not just the screen it would show up - meaning if it showed up on an external screen it could be the graphics chip or some such - but I guess your contention is - if it was that it would show up in a screen shot. I can abide by that logic.