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Weirdly rectangular icebergs are not that weird.
The world recently got a glimpse of a "tabular iceberg" in a photo snapped by NASA scientist Jeremy Harbeck. Taken during an Oct. 16 research flight over the northern Antarctica Peninsula, the picture recently went viral.
Well, it turns out that Harbeck spotted multiple tabular bergs bobbing in the sea frigid close to the now-famous one that day. In fact, one other rectangular iceberg – let's call it Tabular B, and the first-seen one Tabular A for simplicity's sake – takes center stage in a newly released photo. [In Photos: Huge Icebergs Break Off Antarctica]
This photo, taken during an Operation IceBridge flight over the northern Antarctic Peninsula on Oct. 16, 2018, shows another relatively straightforward rectangular iceberg near the famous sharp-cornered berg, which is visible behind the plane's outboard engine. The huge, tabular iceberg A68 is visible in the distance. Credit: Jeremy Harbeck / NASA
The new image also shows one corner of Tabular A poking above an engine of Harbeck's plane, as well as the gigantic tabular berg A68 off in the distance.
A68, which is about the size of the state of Delaware, published in the shelf of July 2017. Tabular A and Tabular B, along with a number of other similar sheet-cake bergs in the area, are products of that NASA scientist John Sonntag said in a newly released video featuring footage from Harbeck's flyover.
"I was actually more interested in capturing the A68 iceberg than we were about to fly over, but I thought this rectangular iceberg was visually interesting and fairly photogenic, so we have a lark, I just took a couple pictures," Harbeck said in a NASA statement Tuesday (Oct. 23).
NASA's IceBridge project captured this sight of a strange rectangular-shaped iceberg in Antarctica in October 2018.
Credit: NASA IceBridge
Harbeck is a senior scientist with Operation IceBridge, a NASA project that surveys polar ice from the air. (Sonntag is the IceBridge mission scientist.) Harbeck's Oct. 16 flight from the city of Punta Arenas, southern Chile. The IceBridge "deployment" that is scheduled to run from Oct. 10 through Nov. 18, NASA officials said.
Tabular icebergs crack off the edges of ice shelves. The bergs with strikingly straight edges and sharp corners are relatively fresh, as the erosional action of wind and waves.
Mike Wall's book on the search for alien life, "Out There," will be published on Nov. 13 by Grand Central Publishing. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.
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