Video of a perfect snowflake forming is mesmerising stuff
Regular snow might be a rare enough sight here in Ireland, but we all know that traditional snowflake shape. Here's an insight into how those perfect six-armed ice crystals form.
Ok, so there's a trickery here. Snowflakes obviously form at high altitudes, where it's a little tricky to place a camera. This video is actually a recording of a snowflake melting, played in reverse.
If you're interested in the actual science, a snowflake forms when very, very cold water lands on something - a piece of pollen or dust - in the sky. Anchored to this solid object, it freezes into a tiny ice crystal - then more crystals fuse onto that as it grows into a snowflake.
Snowflakes also have that visually appealing six-armed symmetry because the crystalline structure of ice is six-sided.
You can read a little more about snowflake formation at the US Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website, if you're interested.
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