Short Wave An icy mystery: What are lake stars?
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Mar 13, 2026 
Victor Tsai, a geophysicist who recreated lake stars in the lab and linked them to features on Europa, explains the curious star-shaped patterns. He describes how slushy snow, thin ice and upwelling warm water carve branching channels. He also compares Earth’s lake stars to spider-like features on Jupiter’s moon and what that could mean for near-surface water there.
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How Lake Stars Actually Form
- Lake stars form when warm water seeps up through a hole in thin ice and melts a slushy snow layer above it.
- Victor Tsai recreated this in a cold lab by placing blender-made slush on ice and slowly dripping just-above-freezing water through a hole.
Blender Saved The Experiment
- Victor Tsai bought a kitchen blender to make realistic slushy snow because the cold lab couldn't produce it.
- He experimented with blender settings to approximate natural slush while working in a summer research stint at Woods Hole.
Make Lake Stars At Home
- Try a simple DIY experiment by blending slush, laying it on a flat surface, and dripping slightly warm water slowly to watch star patterns form.
- Drip the water slowly (like a leaky faucet) and keep water just below room temperature so the slush doesn't catastrophically break up.