Quiz on The Science of Snowflakes

Scientific estimates suggest that roughly 1 million trillion snowflakes fall on Earth annually.

Snow crystals form from water vapor directly into solid ice crystals, not by freezing liquid rain drops (which creates sleet).

Water molecules in snow crystals arrange themselves in a hexagonal (six-sided) lattice structure, not an octagonal one.

Due to the hexagonal molecular structure of ice, snowflakes typically form with six sides or branches.

When light passes through thick ice, the red end of the spectrum is absorbed, leaving the blue light to be scattered and reflected, giving the ice a blue hue.

Because of the complex and varying conditions during crystal growth, no two snowflakes are identical at the molecular level.

Snow forms when the air temperature is at or below freezing (0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit).

Due to high altitudes and polar regions, there is always snow present somewhere on Earth at any given time.

Heavy snowfall requires both moisture in the atmosphere and temperatures cold enough to allow the moisture to freeze into snow.

Snow appears white because the many surfaces of the ice crystals scatter and reflect all visible wavelengths of light equally.

Deposition is the phase transition in which gas transforms directly into a solid without passing through the liquid phase.