photo #5537599

Yanping Wang (Member 52,913) sent us a crystal postcard from the clouds over Beijing, China. ‘We put a glass microscope slide outside to catch the falling snowflakes,’ she explained. This, along with the microscope itself, had been left outdoors to cool to the ambient temperature. ‘We wore gloves to stop our hands melting the snow, and we carefully lifted the other ice crystals from the slide with a pin until this one was left on its own.’ Just 2 mm (0.08 inches) across, the crystal had already begun to sublimate as Yanping photographed it, its six radiating tips softening and contracting as it slowly vanished into the air.