NASA spots SECOND strikingly rectangular iceberg in Antarctica

Ella Wills25 October 2018

NASA has spotted a second strikingly rectangular iceberg in Antarctica.

Scientists photographed the phenomenon, known as a 'tabular' iceberg, during an aerial survey named Operation IceBridge last week.

The second berg was spotted close to the first during the same survey, near to the Larsen C ice shelf, NASA has revealed.

A second rectangular iceberg was photographed from an IceBridge flight on October 16
NASA/Jeremy Harbeck

IceBridge senior support scientist Jeremy Harbeck pictured the two icebergs together on the airborne survey of the Earth's polar ice on October 16.

An iceberg with strikingly sharp corners was also captured on the fly over
NASA/Jeremy Harbeck

The second iceberg is slightly less rectangular than the first, but has noticeably straight edges and corners.

Operation IceBridge is an ongoing NASA mission to monitor changes in polar ice.

NASA shared an image of the first iceberg, which features sharp angles and a flat surface, on social media last week.

“I thought it was pretty interesting; I often see icebergs with relatively straight edges, but I've not really seen one before with two corners at such right angles like this one had,” Mr Harbeck said in a statement.

The iceberg appeared to be freshly calved from Larsen C, which in July 2017 released the massive A68 iceberg, a chunk of ice about twice the size of Luxembourg.

On Tuesday, it emerged that Mr Harbeck had spotted two rectangular icebergs on the same flyover.

In the new photo, Mr Barbeck captured both the edge of the now-famous iceberg, and a slightly less rectangular iceberg.

The image also captures A68 in the distance.

Mr Harbeck added: “I was actually more interested in capturing the A68 iceberg that we were about to fly over, but I thought this rectangular iceberg was visually interesting and fairly photogenic, so on a lark, I just took a couple photos."

The flight originated from Punta Arenas, Chile, as part of a five-week-long IceBridge deployment, which began October 10 and is scheduled to conclude November 18.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT