Meet The World’s Newest Iceberg!

Now that Antarctica is nearing its summer, researchers have finally gotten close enough to capture spectacular photos of the massive iceberg that broke off of the Larsen C ice shelf. 

The giant ice slab, named iceberg A-68,  is big enough to cover the U.S. in 4.6 inches of ice with its surface area of 2,240 square miles, according to the Climate Central. 

NASA’s Operation IceBridge did a flyover of the berg. Kathryn Hansen, a science writer for the space agency, wrote in a blog post that she had only seen the iceberg via satellite images. The researchers were stunned by what they saw. 

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“I was aware that I would be seeing an iceberg the size of Delaware, but I wasn’t prepared for how that would look from the air,” NASA science writer Kathryn Hansen wrote in a blog post. “Most icebergs I have seen appear relatively small and blocky and the entire part of the berg that rises above the ocean surface is visible at once. Not this berg. 

“A-68 is so expansive it appears if it were still part of the ice shelf. But if you look far into the distance you can see a thin line of water between the iceberg and where the new front of the shelf begins,” she added. 

During their expedition, the researchers also looked into the depth of the water and the bedrock underneath the iceberg with the help of radar and gravimeter technology, which measures the shape of the seawater-filled cavities found at the edge of some glaciers. 

The mission has afforded the scientists their closest look at the iceberg yet. 

Iceberg A-68 broke free of the Larsen C ice shelf in July.