UNITED STATES: In a recent satellite photograph released by the American space agency NASA, Antarctic iceberg A-76A, the largest portion of what was once the enormous iceberg, appears to be rapidly approaching the end of its life.
According to the US National Ice Center (USNIC), the iceberg is approximately twice the size of London. It is 135 kilometres long and 26 kilometres wide ( as measured in June 2021).
According to reports, it is the largest piece of the A-76, which broke off from the western edge of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica in May 2021 and later split into three pieces: 76A, 76B, and 76C. Iceberg 76A is the biggest of these remnants.
For more than a year, the iceberg drifted slowly along the Antarctic coast, but now it is melting quickly.
The A-76A was photographed by NASA’s Terra satellite on October 31 as it was cruising in the mouth of the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage is a narrow canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans between Cape Horn in South Africa and the South Shetland Islands to the north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The iceberg is currently visible in the image between Elephant Island and the South Orkney Islands, both of which are obscured by clouds, towards the southern end of the route.
Still, its trajectory indicates that it may soon migrate farther north into the canal. On November 4, the image was posted online by NASA’s Earth Observatory.
Icebergs are not sea ice; instead, they are the floating remains of glaciers or ice shelves, according to NASA. Sea ice is defined as frozen saltwater that floats on the ocean surface.
“A-76A’s next destination is still unknown. The iceberg is already more than 500 kilometres north of where it was in July 2022, when the berg was passing the Antarctic Peninsula on the Sentinel-1 satellite of the European Space Agency,” the agency added.
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