When raindrops hit the ground they do so in a wide variety of sizes. Until now, this distribution was thought to be the result of a series of complex interactions between the drops as they fell. However, a study from the Aix-Marseille University in Marseille (France), published in the journal Nature Physics , has revealed that the size variety is caused by the fragmentation of individual raindrops .
With a high-speed camera, capable of capturing the atomization process, Emmanuel Villermaux and Benjamin Bossa filmed the fall of a single drop of water about six millimeters in diameter. The camera recorded how the large, round blob gradually flattened and, as it grew wider, "captured" the air to form a kind of pocket. Finally the drop burst into a heap of droplets very similar to rain. And it all happened in six hundredths of a second.
