The topology of a laminar separation bubble (LSB) on a sphere in the critical regime is investigated via experiments at five turbulent intensities:
$T_u=0.06\,\%$
,
$0.42\,\%$
,
$0.71\,\%$
,
$1.00\,\%$
and
$1.36\,\%$
. The drag crisis occurs at a lower
$Re$
and becomes gradual with increasing
$T_u$
. The flow is devoid of the LSB at the onset of the critical regime. It forms on a small part of the sphere and not at all azimuthal locations, early in the critical regime. The LSB forms at more azimuthal locations with increasing
$Re$
. This azimuthal expansion of the LSB is accompanied by intermittency for a small range of
$Re$
. Towards the end of the critical regime, an axisymmetric LSB forms on the sphere at all time instants. A model is proposed to estimate the azimuthal extent and distribution of the LSB from the mean force coefficients of a flow state. The model predicts that the LSB forms as multiple segments for a large part of the critical regime. During the spatial growth of the LSB with
$Re$
in the critical regime, some of its fragments relocate to alternate locations. Moderate increase in
$T_u$
(
$0.42\,\% \leq T_u \leq 0.71\,\%$
) leads to rich dynamics with several intermittent flow states. However, fewer intermittent states are observed beyond a certain
$T_u$
(
${\geq }1.00\,\%$
).