02 January 2012

Why snow looks white

From Scientific American:
When we look at freshly fallen snow, we see it as white. This is because sunlight traveling to and through the airy snow is made up of all of the colors in the visible spectrum of light. This light is scattered and reflected through the many snow crystals and flakes. The hexagonal bases of snow crystals act like thousands of prisms lying on the ground, refracting and reflecting all of the colors of the visible light. In most cases, no wavelengths or colors of light are absorbed by the snow and nearly all of the light is reflected back towards our eyes which interpret all of these reflected wavelengths together as the color white.

1 comment:

  1. Ahhh. This would also explain why snow falling in the dark of night is white.

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