Snowflakes

by Darren Fisher

Title

Snowflakes

Artist

Darren Fisher

Medium

Photograph - Photography/ Digital Art

Description

A capture of a group of snowflakes captured with my macro lens along our fence line. I did add a texture to the photo to give it a painterly look. It's amazing what we can't see with the nake eye but can capture and share with our camera and lens.
A snowflake is either a single ice crystal or an aggregation of ice crystals which falls through the Earth's atmosphere.[1] They begin as snow crystals which develop when microscopic supercooled cloud droplets freeze. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Complex shapes emerge as the flake moves through differing temperature and humidity regimes, such that individual snowflakes are nearly unique in structure. Snowflakes encapsulated in rime form balls known as graupel. Snowflakes appear white in color despite being made of clear ice. This is due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small crystal facets.
Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 �m in diameter) freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than -18 �C (0 �F), because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice, then the droplet freezes around this "nucleus." Experiments show that this "homogeneous" nucleation of cloud droplets only occurs at temperatures lower than -35 �C (-31 �F).[3] In warmer clouds an aerosol particle or "ice nucleus" must be present in (or in contact with) the droplet to act as a nucleus. The particles that make ice nuclei are very rare compared to nuclei upon which liquid cloud droplets form; however, it is not understood what makes them efficient. Clays, desert dust and biological particles may be effective,[4] although to what extent is unclear. Artificial nuclei include particles of silver iodide and dry ice, and these are used to stimulate precipitation in cloud seeding.

Uploaded

January 16th, 2014

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Viewed 803 Times  -  Last Visitor from Cambridge, MA on 04/24/2024 at 11:45 PM

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