Snowflake

A tiny ice crystal with famously unique geometry/Events & Phenomena

No two snowflakes are alike — or so the saying goes. A typical snowflake is a hexagonal ice crystal about 5 mm across and weighing just 3 micrograms. They form when water vapor deposits directly onto ice nuclei in clouds at temperatures between -2°C and -35°C. The six-fold symmetry comes from the molecular structure of ice. A single snowflake takes about 30 to 45 minutes to fall from the cloud to the ground, drifting at a leisurely 1.5 m/s.