9 September 2022

It looks like a spaceship but it’s actually a cloud.

Here’s another one at Palm Desert, California.

And another one — quite ominous! — in the mountains in Patagonia. Do I see a mouth on this cloud?

These are all lenticular clouds which form when the wind blows horizontally toward a fixed object that forces the air to rise and fall in a wave. If the fixed object is a mountain and the air is moist it forms a cloud on top of the mountain. The cloud stays right there, thumb-tacked to the sky, as shown in this time lapse from Mount Teide in the Canary Islands.

Mesmerizing timelapse of a lenticular cloud hovering over Mount Teide in the Canary Islands as day turns to night, captured by photographer Bartosz Wojczy?ski.pic.twitter.com/1eLRYGWWsu

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) July 20, 2022

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)