Eli5 why is snow white?

Question

So why is snow the color white and not clear? Is it because of the way it freezes?

In: 26

Answer 1

It’s because even though it’s transparent, there are a lot of surfaces and relfections inside it that eventually completely scatter the light.

**Think of saran wrap / cling film. It’s transparent, but if you scrunch a bunch up into a ball, it becomes white looking** for exactly the same reason as snow. The light passing through hundreds of layers, all at different angles to each other, gets scattered / internally reflected.