Daylight Atheism > Photo Sunday: Icy Complexity

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Photo Sunday: Icy Complexity

For this week's Photo Sunday, a seasonally appropriate picture. There's complexity in the world all around us, and the patterns of cracks and pits on the frozen surface of this lake, almost like the surface of an alien planet, caught my eye as a beautiful example:

Frozen lake surface, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, January 2010. Photo by the author. Camera details: Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS. Click for larger version.

10 Comments

Beautiful. Looks like Europa!

Comment #1 by: jack | February 28, 2010, 11:28 am

It does, at that. :) And when you see the frozen surface of a lake on Earth, and think how much life there is under the surface, enduring the cold and biding its time, I find it hard not to wonder how much life there may be on other planets that's doing the same.

Comment #2 by: Ebonmuse | February 28, 2010, 11:35 am

I see FSM!

Comment #3 by: chanson | February 28, 2010, 12:29 pm

I love enigmatic works of art like this photo. It could be a picture of a vast plain taken from a great height, or a electron micrograph of a square millimeter of skin... It's something in nature, but what?

You gave us the answer to the riddle -- it was a commonplace sight that you were perceptive enough to notice. You have a keen eye for the wonderful!

Comment #4 by: Peter N | February 28, 2010, 1:57 pm

Complexity? Why then God must be behind it somehow! LOL!

Comment #5 by: Tommykey | February 28, 2010, 6:58 pm

"And when you see the frozen surface of a lake on Earth, and think how much life there is under the surface, enduring the cold and biding its time, I find it hard not to wonder how much life there may be on other planets that's doing the same."

I've always wondered about Europa, and although of course I can't be sure, I think it is possible that there's life. Maybe someday we'll send a robot to find out. If we found life, even just microscopic life, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in human history.

. . . I'm sorry, I meant to just comment on the photo. It's beautiful :)

Comment #6 by: Katie M | February 28, 2010, 7:10 pm

Very nice study. It does definitely remind one of Europa. Getting a probe thru that ice shell is one of science's 'hot' (sorry, couldn't resist!) projects. Imagine the impact on global society if/when life is confirmed to exist off-planet.

I hope it happens within my lifetime.

Comment #7 by: Jim Sabiston | March 1, 2010, 9:30 am

Regarding the possibility of life off-planet, since we know now that Mars was once wet, there is also a chance that we can find evidence that life of some sort once did exist there.