Tricolor Snowflake

This is a real photograph of a snowflake up close and personal. This particular flake formed in rarer conditions that favor plates (as opposed to the typical spindles seen in most flakes) and is usually only seen in a narrow temperature range of -3 to -5 C. When this happens, even rarer, a thin layer of different density ice can form over the center of the flake leading to a process of thin film interference (the same type of interference seen when a puddle of water has a thin layer of gasoline on top) as each layer refracts light leading to enhancement and diminishment of certain colors as their waves interact. Here, the center appears to have an object like a flux capacitor in the center creating a rainbow of lights.