Wilson Bentley, a “bona-fide snowflake obsessive,” snapped close-ups of snowflakes in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“But always, from the very beginning it was the snowflakes that fascinated me most.” Under his microscope, Bentley discovered that each snowflake had its own careful and fleeting geometry.

If humidity is low, there isn’t as much water vapour in the atmosphere so the snowflakes form something called 'plates', the flat hexagonal shapes you see if you look at them under a microscope.

Watch: This absolutely breathtaking photography of frost crystals will remind you of nature's microscopic beauty.

Aug 22, 2021 Aug 22, 2021 Updated Sep 26, 2022 Looking at snowflakes under a microscope, asking scientists how they study earthquakes, and learning about how permafrost is changing overtime ...

...but these are freshly fallen snowflakes, or snow crystals, resting on wool. They are around 1 millimeter in size and were captured using a simple, cheap photography technique. When the snow ...