What on Earth was that? It may have looked like an amoeba, but it’s actually a microscopic view of a wind-blown snowflake as viewed by a scanning electron microscope. Scientists in the Electron Microscopy Unit at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, which is just up the road from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, captured the image. Scientists at Goddard typically study snow from above using satellite instruments that fly high above the surface. Despite their differences, both perspectives offer views of bewildering beauty. See more microscopic snow crystal imagery here.
Satellite imagery courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. Snowflake imagery courtesy of the USDA.
–Adam Voiland, NASA’s Earth Science News Team