Snow flake
Overview.
Formation.
Overview.
We think of snowflakes as a white blanket covering the landscape.
This snow itself looks like a featureless mass.
Snow comprises of small snowflakes, which are ice crystals.
Each snowflake is a unique creation by itself.
It would be surprising to know, that no two snowflakes,
in the entire world is the same.
There is a scientific basis for this phenomena.
The structure of a snowflake is intimately related,
to the structure of water molecule.
Formation.
When water is in the liquid form,
the water molecules are bouncing around.
They are not organised into any pattern.
When water freezes, the forces involved,
in the hydrogen bonds between water molecules take over.
6 water molecules combine to form a hexagon.
The angle between 2 hydrogen molecules,
in the water molecule is about 105 degrees.
The 6 molecule hexagon, forms the core of the snowflake.
The snowflake starts as a tiny speck of dust, floating in the cloud.
Water vapour sticks to the grain of dust.
This becomes a tiny droplet of water.
If the temperature is right, this droplet turns into ice.
The ice crystal that is formed, is a prism with a hexagon base.
The cohesive forces are primarily electrostatic.
The snowflake exhibits a 6 fold radial symmetry.
This is because water molecules chemically bond into a hexagonal network.
Water molecules have this special property, when they crystallise in a snowflake.
Snowflakes grow as it accumulates more moisture.
The growth is faster in the edges.
More hexagonal crystals form along the edges.
The points stick out, which increases the probability of water vapour,
binding to the edges.
The shape of the snowflake is determined by the temperature,
and humidity at which it is formed.
The 6 branches of the snowflakes, grow independently.
When the snowflake falls to the ground, the environment keeps changing.
The temperature and humidity keeps changing.
This influences the way in which each snowflake grows.
There is a wide variety of possible growth patterns,
retaining the same basic hexagonal unit.
If we magnify and view the structure of the snowflake,
we come across myriads of beautiful patterns.
The patterns are formed by following the simple laws of nature.
In this case, it is determined by the structure of the water molecule,
and the varying environmental conditions.
Hydrogen normally has one proton, in its nucleus.
Hydrogen has an isotope called deuterium.
Deuterium has one proton and one neutron in its nucleus.
One of a few thousand hydrogen atoms, is actually deuterium.
All this deuterium is believed to have formed, in the big bang,
in the beginning of the universe.
Some of the water molecules have deuterium,
instead of the normal hydrogen.
The water molecules which contain deuterium,
can be located anywhere in the more than,
trillion molecules of an snowflake.
This randomness ensures that each and every snowflake,
is a unique pattern created by nature.
Snow comprises of many ice crystals.
Though ice is transparent, snow appears to be white in colour.
This is because of the diffuse reflection, of the whole spectrum of light,
by the small crystal facets.