Snowflake

3D Model

When we try to picture snow, we often usually imagine the fernlike pattern of a six-sided snowflake. But there are many forms of snow crystals including hollowed out prisms, long icy columns, 12-branched stars, rosettes, bullets, elaborate plates, cups, clusters of needles and more. Some snow falls in the form of arrowheads. Others are freckled with tiny balls of ice. According to crystallographers, even if a person were somehow able to view the 1 septillion (that’s 1 trillion trillion) snowflakes that fall to the ground each winter, the probability of two flakes being identical in molecular appearance and structure is 0. This is because each snowflake has what crystallographers call a ‘history of development’. First, the molecular makeup of snow crystals is unique, so each crystal is slightly different from the beginning. Second, atmospheric conditions further alter the complex form of a crystal. Delicate shifts in temperature add to the shape and design of the snowflake as it emerges from a cloud.