So the snowflakes were a different story altogether.

So there's the classic one.

You know, I lived in Ottawa, Ontario for six years.

Three years of continuous snowflake production because it's, because really the winter

lasts for half the year.

I worked out a methodology to get snowflakes into the vacuum chamber of the electron microscope

using liquid nitrogen. I had this kind of cryopod, which was used to take DNA samples around Canada.

So you can capture the flakes and keep them at minus 200 or something degrees, something incredibly cold.

And then you have a shot at getting it into the vacuum chamber.

Ice in general doesn't like a vacuum and it doesn't like being hit by electron beams.

You know, it sublimates and it melts. But you have about three minutes to capture a snowflake.

And so we worked out a methodology to get high quality SCM images of snowflakes. That's a close view of the center of this thing.

You can see why no two snowflakes are

alike when you look with a microscope like this, because they're so complex, you know.

This one has a bisected tine, and when I first saw it, I thought, oh, it's too bad, it's not

perfect. I can't really use this one. And then a minute later later I said, wait a second, this is how it looks.

Use this, you know, and actually I think it's beautiful.

It is beautiful.

For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Kendra P. Lewis in for Rachel Feltman.

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...