On this night in science
Snow made by a scientist
November 13, 1946
On this day in 1946, the scientist Vincent Schaefer rode in a small plane over Mount Greylock in Massachusetts and dropped pellets of dry ice into a cloud. The cold made tiny ice crystals form inside the cloud, and soon snow began to fall from it, though it melted away before it reached the ground.
Why it mattered
It was the first time anyone had coaxed snow out of a real cloud in the sky. Scientists still use the same idea, called cloud seeding, today.
Wonder together
If you could make it snow just once, where would you want the snowflakes to land?
There's an episode about this
Snowflakes: Winter's Quiet Blanket
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