Snowflakes under a microscope turn into amazing alien landscapes

You may have heard that every snowflake is unique, but to really get a sense of that you've got to dig down to the microscopic level. That's exactly what the folks over at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland did with a Low Temperature Scanning Electron Microscope (or LT-SEM).

The result? A look at the structure of snow crystals in all shapes and configurations. Some of them even look like alien architecture from a distant world. Check it out in the gallery below — the shapes just get crazier and crazier. After all, we're all not tired of snow just yet, right?

It's pretty amazing how much detail there is at these magnifications.

Really quite fascinating, I would say. Could make for some nice wall mounts.

That's kinda geeky though I gotta say.

But it has artistic worth in its abstractness.