NASA finds a new iceberg three times larger than Manhattan in Antarctica

NASA has spotted a new giant iceberg three times larger than Manhattan in Antarctica.

Named B-46, it is expected to measure 66 nautical miles square (87 square miles), according to estimates by the US National Ice Center.

NASA's Operation IceBridge flight spotted the huge iceberg, which had separated from the Pine Island Glacier at the end of October.

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Wednesday's flight plan brought the IceBridge team to the Pine Island Glacier as part of a long-term campaign to collect measurements from one year to the next of the year. sea ​​ice, glaciers and critical regions of the Earth's ice sheets.

"While the NASA DC-8 was flying according to its predetermined flight pattern, the new iceberg that had softened at the end of October had appeared," said the Space Agency.

Ice trays, the areas of floating ice that surround much of Antarctica, host icebergs in the natural process of ice formation towards the sea.

However, it is possible that the giant berg does not last long – NASA said that "the satellite images and the IceBridge flight showed that the main iceberg was already starting to break."

Scientists also closely monitor whether calving frequency changes over time.

The crack that would become B-46 had been noticed at the end of September 2018 and the iceberg was broken about a month later.

But at the end of 2016, IceBridge saw a crack begin on the trunk of the Pine Island Glacier, which is about 22 km wide.

It took a year for the flaw to form and the iceberg named B-44 disassociated in September 2017.

Pine Island has now fished large icebergs in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2018.

Previously, the glacier experienced major calving every six years or so.

According to NASA research, Pine Island and the nearby Thwaites Glacier contribute to the sea level rise on a global scale of about one millimeter per decade, their ice flow to the sea ​​being accelerated in recent years.

It comes a day after NASA revealed that a strange rectangular iceberg spotted in Antarctica was "born" much earlier than expected.

It was thought that the rectangular iceberg had just been freshly calved in the Larsen C, which released in July 2017 the huge iceberg A68, a block of ice the size of the state of the Delaware.

"The berg was so well cut that it was reasonable to assume that he would have very recently calved Larsen C ice pack," NASA said.

However, new satellite images reveal that it "has a much more interesting story than the one we thought" and that it actually floated around the sea for four months before it "d". to be spotted.

The image below, tweeted on November 9, 2018 by Stef Lhermitte from the Delft University of Technology, shows the newly calved small icebergs. The rectangle iceberg, which measured about 4 km at the time, appears just north of a curved iceberg.

The sharp-angled iceberg that made the headlines at the end of October 2018 had a longer and more difficult course than expected.

The iceberg was spotted on October 16, 2018 during Operation IceBridge-NASA's long-term observation flight on the polar ice.

The scientist Jeremy Harbeck saw the fascinating iceberg during this day of studying glaciers and ice trays along the northern Antarctic Peninsula.

Not only were the edges of the iceberg extremely straight, but the two corners appeared "squared" at right angles.

Scientists have used Landsat 8 and Sentinel-1 images from the European Space Agency to trace the origin of Ireland.

They discovered that the new pack ice front was up at the beginning of November 2017, only a few months after the breakup of A-68.

The iceberg rectangle then began its journey north by navigating the newly opened waters located between the Larsen C ice shelf and the A-68 iceberg.

The threats of collision were omnipresent: A-68 could break at any time in small icebergs, and smaller ones could collide.

The iceberg crossed the north through a narrow passageway between the northern tip of the A-68 and a rocky outcrop near the Bawden Ice Rise pack ice. NASA / UMBC glaciologist Chris Shuman compares this area to a nutcracker.

A-68 repeatedly hit the climb and popped pieces of ice into well-cut geometric shapes.

An area of ​​geometric ice rubble is visible in the Landsat 8 image of October 14, 2018, two days before the IceBridge flight.

The rectangle of one time was not spared. it's broken into smaller pieces.

The iceberg on Harbeck's photo, surrounded by the annotated Landsat 8 satellite image, appears closer to the shape of a trapeze.

The trapezoidal church is approximately 900 meters wide and 1500 meters long, which is tiny compared to the Delaware-sized A-68.

By November 2018, the iceberg had emerged from the rubble and was in open water.

Shuman said: "This is more than an iceberg that is about to die."

A second A rectangular iceberg, known as the "tabular" iceberg, was spotted off the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, near the Larsen C ice floe and near the first.

NASA experts have recently exploded. Sharp angles and flat surfaces are proof that the break has occurred very recently.

This image was taken during an IceBridge flight: an aerial survey of the polar ice of the planet, which gives a 3D picture of the ice that makes up the Arctic and Antarctic, providing information essential on its evolution in time.

"I thought it was pretty interesting; I often see icebergs with relatively straight edges, but I have not seen them before, with two angles as straight as this one, "said Jeremy Harbeck, senior scientist in support of IceBridge.

The rectangular iceberg seemed to be freshly calved from Larsen C, who released in July 2017 the gigantic A68 iceberg, a block of ice the size of the state of Delaware.

In a different photo (above), Harbeck captured both the edge of the now famous iceberg and a slightly less rectangular iceberg. This image also captures A68 in the distance.

"I was actually more interested in catching the A68 iceberg than we were flying over, but I thought this rectangular iceberg was visually interesting and quite photogenic, so on a lark, I just took some pictures "said Harbeck.

The flight originated in Punta Arenas, Chile, as part of a five-week IceBridge deployment, which began on October 10 and will end on November 18.

This is NASA's oldest polar ice aerial survey.

During the study, designed to evaluate ice-level changes in several glaciers flowing through Larsen A, B and C bays, IceBridge's principal scientist, Jeremy Harbeck, spotted a very sharp-edged tabular iceberg floating in the ice. the sea ice just next to the Larsen. C ice shelf.

The strange, angular berg is known as a tabular iceberg.

"A tabular iceberg is right, floating in the sea ice right next to the Larsen C ice floe," said the space agency.

"The acute angles and the flat surface of the iceberg indicate that he was probably recently calved from the pack ice."

In an interview with LiveScience, NASA scientist Kelly Brunt said, "Tabular icebergs look like nails that crack, giving them sharp edges.

"What makes it a bit unusual, is that it looks almost like a square," she says.

She felt that her height was about a mile wide.

Scientists have been following Larsen C closely since a huge iceberg has escaped and started spinning.

Experts had previously said the giant area, estimated to be about the size of Delaware, was locked, saying "probably stuck on the bottom of the sea & # 39;

"But now, the A68 has begun to shift to the north," said recently polar oceanographer Mark Brandon, who spotted the move using the temperature data collected by the satellite's the Suomi nuclear power station.