On a couple different background stars/planets (not all of them), i keep getting a flickering black boxy shaped thing that appears. I'm sure this has something to do with my video settings/hardware. Any suggestions?

what are your current settings?

Yeah, without specifics like your current settings, graphics hardware and system specs, the only advice anyone can give is "change stuff." =P

If the background detail is very high or above (I think), the objects such as moons and planets are 3-d, so if something went wrong there it could make a black box.. I suppose. If the background detail is below that, all of the background is bitmapped, so it wouldn't make any sense for black boxes to show up.

Either way, this is the first I've heard of any problem like this.

Good luck.

Ghost: If you are on a Mac, try the "osxfix" alias in the "binds" thread.
If you're on Windows or Linux, like thginkrej said, "change stuff".