Snowflake-a-Day No. 20
Circles, canyons and caves! This tiny snowflake has many interesting features that we don’t see often, and understanding them makes this crystal even more beautiful. View large and read on!
Circles in the center of a snowflake aren’t that common but they are easily explained. The first time I saw them, I reached out to Ken Libbrecht, a physicist at CalTech who studies snowflakes professionally, and asked me to consider inward crystal growth. Essentially, a thinker outer edge can do two things: grow outward as a hexagon, maybe sprouting branches, but also grow inward as the thick edge can catch incoming water molecules on both sides. I wrote about this in a page of Sky Crystals if you’re curious: skycrystals.ca/pages/circles-in-the-snow.jpg - but this snowflake is probably the best example I have ever seen of circles in the snow.
The beauty continues when you understand how the bubbles often form in this particular snowflake. Many of them don’t start from the thin side which is much more common – these bubbles form from tiny canyons in the surface of the ice that transition into tiny caves. Here’s a close-up of this happening: skycrystals.ca/bts/DKP_3373.jpg
Essentially, some of the divots in the ice (the canyons) transition so deep that they end up getting covered by a top layer of ice and become a cave structure. It’s very interesting to see a pair of parallel canyons closer to the center, followed by a pair of complete bubbles in the same pattern just a little further away. We can even notice a “skylight”, where a hole to a cavity/cave/bubble is open at the top. I am unsure exactly why this transition happens. I understand how bubbles form in the middle, but why they do narrow depressions in the thickness of the snowflake from the top or bottom occur? I think I should ask the folks with a PhD in physics about this one. :)
While simplistic in its overall footprint, this snowflake packs a punch in the smallest details. Understanding why this snowflake is incredibly unique only adds to its beauty. It’s like someone dropped a pebble in a pond near the center, leading to intricate and ornate carvings as the branches start to form. I would have loved to see this snowflake grow full branches – who knows how mysterious they would be!
… and that reminds me of an idea. Speaking of studying snowflakes, Ken Libbrecht has been the only person I know if to actually grow snowflakes in a lab and shoot time-lapse video of their growth. I’m not if it’s a secret to how he does this, but a similar technique could potentially be applied to a freshly fallen snowflake such as this, to make branches grow from those little nubs at the corners. The engineering challenge here would be immense, but it’s a thought rattling around in my head.
If you’d like to know more about the science of snowflakes with an exhaustive and comprehensive tutorial on how to photograph and edit these little gems, check out my book Sky Crystals:
Hardcover: www.skycrystals.ca/book/
eBook: www.skycrystals.ca/ebook/
Other things you might be interested in:
2018 Ice Crystals Coin from the Royal Canadian Mint featuring my snowflakes: www.mint.ca/store/coins/coin-prod3040427
“The Snowflake” print, taking 2500 hours to create: skycrystals.ca/product/poster-proof/
Photo Geek Weekly, my new podcast: www.photogeekweekly.com/
Snowflake-a-Day No. 20
Circles, canyons and caves! This tiny snowflake has many interesting features that we don’t see often, and understanding them makes this crystal even more beautiful. View large and read on!
Circles in the center of a snowflake aren’t that common but they are easily explained. The first time I saw them, I reached out to Ken Libbrecht, a physicist at CalTech who studies snowflakes professionally, and asked me to consider inward crystal growth. Essentially, a thinker outer edge can do two things: grow outward as a hexagon, maybe sprouting branches, but also grow inward as the thick edge can catch incoming water molecules on both sides. I wrote about this in a page of Sky Crystals if you’re curious: skycrystals.ca/pages/circles-in-the-snow.jpg - but this snowflake is probably the best example I have ever seen of circles in the snow.
The beauty continues when you understand how the bubbles often form in this particular snowflake. Many of them don’t start from the thin side which is much more common – these bubbles form from tiny canyons in the surface of the ice that transition into tiny caves. Here’s a close-up of this happening: skycrystals.ca/bts/DKP_3373.jpg
Essentially, some of the divots in the ice (the canyons) transition so deep that they end up getting covered by a top layer of ice and become a cave structure. It’s very interesting to see a pair of parallel canyons closer to the center, followed by a pair of complete bubbles in the same pattern just a little further away. We can even notice a “skylight”, where a hole to a cavity/cave/bubble is open at the top. I am unsure exactly why this transition happens. I understand how bubbles form in the middle, but why they do narrow depressions in the thickness of the snowflake from the top or bottom occur? I think I should ask the folks with a PhD in physics about this one. :)
While simplistic in its overall footprint, this snowflake packs a punch in the smallest details. Understanding why this snowflake is incredibly unique only adds to its beauty. It’s like someone dropped a pebble in a pond near the center, leading to intricate and ornate carvings as the branches start to form. I would have loved to see this snowflake grow full branches – who knows how mysterious they would be!
… and that reminds me of an idea. Speaking of studying snowflakes, Ken Libbrecht has been the only person I know if to actually grow snowflakes in a lab and shoot time-lapse video of their growth. I’m not if it’s a secret to how he does this, but a similar technique could potentially be applied to a freshly fallen snowflake such as this, to make branches grow from those little nubs at the corners. The engineering challenge here would be immense, but it’s a thought rattling around in my head.
If you’d like to know more about the science of snowflakes with an exhaustive and comprehensive tutorial on how to photograph and edit these little gems, check out my book Sky Crystals:
Hardcover: www.skycrystals.ca/book/
eBook: www.skycrystals.ca/ebook/
Other things you might be interested in:
2018 Ice Crystals Coin from the Royal Canadian Mint featuring my snowflakes: www.mint.ca/store/coins/coin-prod3040427
“The Snowflake” print, taking 2500 hours to create: skycrystals.ca/product/poster-proof/
Photo Geek Weekly, my new podcast: www.photogeekweekly.com/