An "Astro-glacier", also referred to by the Cat simply as "a big Space iceberg", was a natural phenomenon rarely encountered in Deep Space, although they could sometimes be man-made. Kristine Kochanski studied astro-glaciers during her first year in the Space Corps, and she never thought she would see one up close. Three million years later, whilst on Starbug, Kris and her fellow crewmembers came across an astro-glacier and Kris was fascinated by it's "crystalline formations". Kris also noted that it was "allotropically modified, surrounded by an envelope of luminous gases."