There ’s no shortage of leaving - ons on Earth that astronauts can see from outer space : auroras , predominate clouds , volcanic eruptions . Now , there ’s a grim accession to the list : a ( once ) massive iceberg that ’s get a date with death .
In March 2000 , the biggest iceberg ever to peel off the Ross Ice Shelf begin its 18 - year trek in open waters . Iceberg B-15 started as a Connecticut - sized ice heavyweight at around 4,200 square miles — over twice as big as thenow - famous crisphead lettuce A-68 , which broke off the Larsen C ice shelf last July . After a barrage of jazz and forceful currents , B-15 gradually broke down into smaller and small fragment ( as iceberg lettuce do ) . Only four sizable sections continue .
image take by cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station on May 22 andpostedthis week on NASA ’s Earth Observatory have captured one of the few remaining shard : iceberg B-15Z. When the astronauts captured the picture , B-15Z was about 66 square miles . Though that ’s still a traceable size of it , NASA says it wo n’t be long until the berg breaks into even humble small-arm , take a shit it punishing for research worker to keep tabs on it .
allot to theNational Ice Center , while of B15 travel hundreds of geographical mile westwards around Antarctica throughout the eighteen years since it separated from the Ross Ice Shelf , wee it as far as the Antarctic Peninsula in the Weddell Sea . B-15z was one of the resultant fragments after B-15 ’s magnanimous lump , B-15 T , broke apart in 2014 .
After flow drove B-15Z forth from the Drake Passage , the soundbox of water between the southernmost peak in South America and 100 sea mile ( 160 km ) above the Antarctic peninsula , the berg made its way towards the South Georgia island , a collection of island in the southern Atlantic Ocean . As NASA glaciologist Kelly Brunt said in astatement , when icebergs veer aside from their origin towards the equator , melting weewee “ works its means through the iceberg like a stage set of knives . ”
According to NASA ’s Earth Observatory , “ iceberg that make it this far have been know to chop-chop melt and end their living cycles . ” So it ’s only a matter of time .
R.I.P. iceberg B-15Z. You had a good rivulet .
AntarcticaGlaciologyice on thin internal-combustion engine
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