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A surprisingly rectangular, naturally shaped sheet of ice was spotted by NASA during a scheduled flight on October 16th.
The survey, named Operation IceBridge, is designed to monitor changes in ice levels over several Antarctic glaciers.
It was during one of these regular surveillance flights that the lead scientist, Jeremy Harbeck, spotted an unusually angular iceberg floating just off the Larsen ice floe.
"I often see icebergs with relatively straight edges, but I've never seen one with two angles as straight as this one," Harbeck said in a statement.
The photo, shared on NASA's social network account, raised questions about whether it was a natural event.
Jan Lieser, a marine glaciologist at the Center for Cooperative Research on Climate and Ecosystems of the Antarctic, said it was not unusual to see straight lines and sharp angles on the ice sheets.
"It's a natural phenomenon, it's beautiful, but nothing extraordinary … I've seen many icebergs around Antarctica that have very straight, very long sides," he said. .
Lieser said the straight lines are due to the structure of the snow crystals, the way they separate and react to the stresses.
"There is no one who runs with a chainsaw and cuts it … Nature sometimes adopts right angles," he said.
In his statement to NASA, Harbeck said that he was more interested in capturing the giant iceberg A68, the size of the US state of Delaware, which separated from the ice floe Larson C in 2017.
"We were about to fly over but we thought it was visually interesting and rather photogenic, so on a lark, I just took some pictures," Harbeck said.
"The sharp angles and flat surface of the iceberg indicate that he was probably recently calved from the pack ice."
Scientists have repeatedly warned that world pack ice could disappear completely as the effects of climate change are felt. Some of the oldest ice in the Arctic has begun to melt.
This deployment of IceBridge is expected to be completed by November 18, according to NASA.
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