When it's raining, it may seem that every raindrop is the same—same size, same basic shape, same wetness. But if you could compare and measure raindrops, you'd find that they're not all the same size or shape. In fact, raindrops vary from one to six millimeters in diameter and come in all sorts of shapes. When they first fall from clouds, raindrops are surprisingly large—in rare cases, some are as wide across as a baseball. So what happens to break these monster drops into many smaller drops of different sizes?

Scientists used to think it was the result of drops colliding and splintering as they fell. But one study has found that although individual large drops do indeed break up into smaller shards, it has nothing to do with mid air collisions. Instead, drops shatter all on their own. French scientists observed the phenomenon when they used a high speed camera to capture drops falling from a nozzle to simulate rainfall.

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