A snowflake
© Don Komarechka/Science Photo Library
A snowflake
It turns out that old notion that each snowflake is unique is probably true (although it seems to us that it’d be awfully hard to confirm). And for the scientists who study such things, snowflakes are further categorised by how the crystal, or crystals, form. The stellar dendrite is the type seen here and what most of us try to emulate when we cut paper snowflakes. For this photo of a real snowflake, 38 separate images were aligned to convey the detail of each layer within the flake, which is less than a quarter-inch wide.
Benagil Cave, Algarve, Portugal
Houseboats in Alappuzha, Kerala, India
Tombstone Territorial Park, Yukon, Canada
Hainich National Park, Thuringia, Germany
Ruskeala Mountain Park, Karelia, Russia
A surfboard fence near Paia, Maui, Hawaii
Rub' al Khali desert on the border of Oman and the Emirate of Dubai
Stairway to Heaven trail, Wawayanda State Park, New Jersey, USA
