When physicist Kenneth Libbrecht looks out over a snowy landscape, he doesn't see a peaceful scene, he sees a laboratory. Libbrecht has traveled from Fairbanks, Alaska, to a research station above the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden to study the formation of snow crystals. His microscopic photos on display in his latest book, Snowflakes from Voyageur Press, show the intricate variety of snow crystals, and reveal the rigorous laws of nature that shape them.

Libbrecht is interested in what happens on a molecular level when ice crystals form, but he sees it as an old-fashioned scientific pursuit: "It's really like doing science 100 years ago," he says, in that he's studying a mystery inherent in the mundane and familiar snowflakes that flutter from the sky each winter.