Dictionary

snow line en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Meanings

1. The altitude, in a mountainous region, above which the ground is covered with snow, at any particular time.
2. The inner limit where volatile molecules can remain frozen in the zone around a star.
   • Chris Ormel, an astronomer at the University of Amsterdam, and his colleagues recently calculated that protoplanets began to form at the snow line around the star, then grew quickly by accreting pebbles. 2018 April 26, Alexandra Witze, “Earth May Have Been Formed by a Bunch of Tiny Space Pebbles”, in The Atlantic:
3. (specifically) The limit for water remaining solid instead of evaporating away under solar radiation.

Forms

Coordinates

tree line

Deriveds

water snow line · carbon monoxide snow line

Relateds

Venus zone · habitable zone

Synonyms

snow level · frost line