When producer <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/985775371/berly-mccoy"target="_blank" >Berly McCoy</a> was out on her local frozen lake, she saw something she'd never seen before. There were dark spidery, star-shaped patterns in the ice and they freaked her out. So, we called an expert to find out more about them. In today’s episode, geophysicist <a href="https://vivo.brown.edu/display/vtsai2"target="_blank" >Victor Tsai</a> tells us about lake stars and how he became the first person to scientifically prove how they form. Plus, he explains how knowing more about lake stars can potentially give us clues about the presence of water on Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons. Read Victor Tsai’s <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/Victor_21243.pdf"target="_blank" >full paper on lake stars here</a>. Have a question about something in the environment? Email us at <a href="mailto:shortwave@npr.org"target="_blank" >shortwave@npr.org</a>. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at <a href="http://plus.npr.org/shortwave"target="_blank" >plus.npr.org/shortwave</a>. To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below: See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. Learn more about sponsor message choices: <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

Podurama

Home

Trending

Personal

Your Podcasts

New Episodes

My Files

Favourite Episodes

Tags (Folders)

Recently Played

Bookmarks

Followed Playlists

An icy mystery: What are lake stars?

Short Wave Plus

AI Chapters

AI Insights

Reviews