• Question: Why is ice clear and snow white?

    Asked by avengedsevenfold to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 24 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Luna Munoz

      Luna Munoz answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      I think it has to do with the way they were frozen. Ice results from freezing still water while snow results from freezing water droplets into small ice crystals.

    • Photo: David Pyle

      David Pyle answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      It’s all to do with light-scattering. Snow crystals are small (usually less than a few tenths of a millimetre across) and have an intricate form. Light falling on a snow crystal, or clumps of snow crystals, will be scattered by the crystal faces,giving the appearance of a white colour. Ice, which lacks internal boundaries between crystal grains, scatters the light a lot less and therefore looks clear. Dense ice in glaciers actually looks blue – but apparently this is due to the absorption of red light by the H-O bond in the ice.

    • Photo: Probash Chowdhury

      Probash Chowdhury answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      That’s due to the shape of and density of the crystals that form. In ice the crystals are very uniform and closely packed together and light is able to pass through the structure fairly easily. In snow the crystals are bunched in more complex shapes to form flakes and the crystals are not all aligned so light finds it difficult to pass through.

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