Answering to the image:
There is no chance this is natural, someone must have made it, look at how perfect it is!
People have been photographing snowflakes since the 19th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_BentleySome of them really are that intricate and that perfect (they also come in less impressive shapes). NatGeo ran a special on snowflakes when I was in high school. Someone had perfected a technique of encasing them in plastic before they melted and the whole thing was so fascinating that I remember it 40 years later.