Yes, this is a real picture. More accurately, it’s 165 pictures pasted together from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft’s flyby of Saturn as the planet between the probe and the sun. From this unique vantage point, the contrast of light and shadow enabled astronomers to discern new bands of ice and dust — perhaps the remnants [...]

Frosty questions: Are some snowflakes identical? How do flakes form, and how does weather affect their shape? How does ice in the atmosphere affect weather and climate? And where does the jet stream fit in this picture?

One fact we know from childhood: every snowflake is unique.
Isn’t it?
UW-Madison’s snowflake expert, meteorology professor Pao Wang, gently delivered the grim news: “Not really. I think the saying is more or less a picturesque way of saying that there are so many varieties of snowflakes, thousands of different kinds.”
Wang studies how snow and ice form [...]