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Snow crystal images of exquisite artistry by Danish photographer Jesper Grønne (fotojesper.dk). These are but a few samples of his collection, three galleries start here. ©Jesper Grønne, shown with permission.
Each snow crystal is unique and yet each shares the same underlying six sided prism structure. They share that structure with the much smaller and simpler plate and column crystals that make halos - snow crystals do not generate halos except perhaps some pillars and subsuns. The six-sidedness is an echo of the regular hexagonal arrangement of oxygen and hydrogen at the scale of atoms. Although atomic arrays are regular, there is no requirement of regularity at our scale - only that interfacial angles are always the same. Snow crystals are often selected for symmetry but the majority are not symmetric. The occasional irregularities of Jesper's add to their beauty and naturalness. |
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