Skip to main content

Fresh Snow




I recently went on a journey through the Cascade mountains. It was a snowy trip. The snow in the mountains was fresh. There is something about fresh snow that looks different from old snow or late season snow. Why does fresh snow look so magical? Is it because we are not used to seeing it? I suppose that could be, if it is the first snow of the season, and you haven’t seen any for almost a year. Or if like me, you live in an area that rarely gets snow, it will always be novel and magical. Of course, snow can also bring inconvenience and travel headaches (we made it through the mountains okay . . . slowly) but I will save that discussion for another day.

However, fresh snow has something else going for it. It has a chance to gradually accumulate on the branches of trees or bushes. Even bare branches can develop a seemingly impossible stack of snow that balances on the slenderest of shafts. Older snow after it has been around a while, begins to clump up and fall off making for a patchier appearance, whereas fresh snow makes the foliage look more like a Christmas cookie that has been professionally frosted.

This got me thinking about how snow might look on other worlds. Of all the many solid surface bodies in our solar system, including moons, asteroids, and planets, not very many of them produce snow. On our world the snow is made of water, H2O. But on Pluto the snow is made of methane. Mars has two kinds of snow, water and carbon dioxide. Saturn’s moon Enceladus has geysers that spew liquid water and ammonia, some of which returns to the surface as snow. Another of Saturn’s moons, Titan, has clouds of methane that sometimes precipitate as snow. Io is one of Jupiter’s moons that is constantly stretched and pulled by the tidal effects of being so close to Jupiter. This causes sulfur geysers to erupt and some of that sulfur returns to Io as yellow snow (quit snickering). Neptune’s moon Triton has pink snow that is made of nitrogen and methane. That is about as much snow that we know of in our solar system.

Of course, there are potentially billions of planets and moons in our galaxy with probably billions of variations of conditions. That is too much for the human imagination to conceive. So, for now I will have to be content to be enchanted by our fresh snow.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources)


Star liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

My first experience with cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction was Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer was one of the early works that defined the cyberpunk genre. It was insanely influential. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award. But for me, it just did not resonate. I had a hard time visualizing the concepts. It left a bad taste in my mouth for cyberpunk. I mostly avoided the genre. Then a couple of years ago I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson which is cyberpunk (although some people say it is a parody of cyberpunk). Whatever, I liked it. I recently picked up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu and it immediately became apparent to me that this was cyberpunk. Julia Z is the main character, and I think this is going to be the start of a series following her. She is a hacker (hence cyberpunk). She has got herself in trouble and so she lives on the margins, barely making it. Then a lawyer asks her for her help. His wife has been kidnapped. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Linear Nature of Time

    Go Go back Go back to the time before Before you did it Before they did it Before it was done to you Before the toast fell on the floor Before the catastrophe Before the mistake Before time’s scars Before   Go Go back Redeem it Rework it Fix it Go back   No you cannot Go back Star Liner
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Walls Don't Work

  At the peak of the Roman Empire, the empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to Brittain, from northern Africa to southern Germany. But the great conquering emperors like Trajan learned that conquering land was easy compared to holding on to it.   In fact, Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, was known for shrinking the empire and consolidating Trajan’s gains into a more defensible set of holdings. This made him not popular among his generals who wanted glory and spoils. But he understood if you stretch yourself too thin, you can wind up with nothing. To consolidate the Empire’s holdings in Brittain, he had a wall constructed from Solway Firth to the Tyne River. Construction began in the year 122 AD. The Empire had never been able to subdue the highland Scottish tribes, so this wall (Hadrian’s Wall) divided the “barbarians from the Romans.” It was a solid piece of engineering with forts and towers scattered along it to keep the “barbarians” out. Hadrian’s successor, Antonius Pius...
Post a Comment
Read more