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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

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