Voyage of an Antarctic Iceberg
Explanation:
What if part of
New York broke off and slammed into
New Jersey?
Both being anchored
land masses, that is unlikely to happen,
but an event of that size scale did occur off the
Antarctic coast
over the last three months.
Long Island, New York sized B-15A
iceberg
floated across 100 kilometers of the Ross Sea and struck a submarine
shoal
just before an
expected impact with the massive
Drygalski Ice Tongue, visible on the bottom right of the last image.
As it is summer in Earth's
Southern Hemisphere,
the relatively warm weather was expected to melt
and clear much of surrounding ice, but now
B-15A blocks much of this ice from floating out to sea.
This created a problem not only for ships servicing
McMurdo Station but also for
penguins expecting to swim.
The greater
Ross Ice Shelf, from which B-15A calved, has shed
several large icebergs
over the past few years.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
