It looks a bit like a boat, or a stout fedora.
So what the hell is this rusty brown gossamer of a space cloud?
Lenticular clouds are ellipticalon Earth as they are in heaven.
A nearly edge-on view of NGC 4753.Image:ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Kelsey
Fittingly lenticular clouds sometimes get compared to, or even mistaken for, flying saucers.
After all, theyre pretty alien compared to our normal, fluffy cumulus clouds.
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A lenticular cloud over Beijing in 2021.Photo: Song Yu/VCG (Getty Images)
Another lenticular galaxy, NGC 1023, about 36 million light-years from Earth.Image:NASA, ESA, and G. Sivakoff (University of Alberta); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
