It wasn’t until Kenneth Libbrecht moved to decidedly un-snowy southern California that he finally began to appreciate snow. “I found it kind of funny that after I ended up as an adult and moved away ...

When you put the borax in boiling water it dissolved. The particles settle on the bottom of the jar and the pipe cleaner. When the water cools the borax goes back to its natural state. Why is each ...

The beautiful symmetry of snowflakes masks the complex physics that governs how ice crystals grow and develop under different environmental conditions, explains Kenneth Libbrecht (Courtesy: ...

PASADENA — In a cozy lab on a campus dotted with palm trees, physicist Kenneth Libbrecht is busy building the world’s biggest snowflake. It’s a feat impossible in nature, where fragile flakes form in ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Snowflakes form when a cold water droplet freezes onto particulates (like dust or pollen) in the atmosphere, creating an ice crystal. As the ice crystal falls through the sky, ...

Kastalia Medrano is a Manhattan-based journalist whose writing has appeared at outlets like Pacific Standard, VICE, National Geographic, the Paris Review Daily, and Real Life magazine. Her RTs = ...

Jason Benedict studies crystals — materials whose atoms and molecules arrange themselves in an orderly pattern when in a solid state. Snowflakes fall under this category. Each one that tumbles from ...

Above: A hexagonal (six-sided) snow crystal, classified as a stellar dendrite. This crystal was photographed with an Olympus TG-6 camera after it landed on the sleeve of the authors fleece jacket.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Crystals are a vital part of our everyday lives. They fall from the sky as snowflakes. They flavor our food in the form of sugar and salt. They help drive technologies that range from ...

How large do the largest snowflakes grow to? I heard on the radio that snowflakes 16 inches in diameter were reported in the western states several years ago. Is that even possible? A snowflake that ...