A large portion (the size of Delaware or Crete, depending on where you live) of the Larson C ice shelf broke off from Antarctica in July. For months, the only images available came from satellites that could see through the darkness of the Antarctic winter. A few months later, as sunlight returned with summer, airplane flights to the continent were able to resume and researchers saw the giant iceberg in person for the first time.
The images, shared by NASA, are some of the first images depicting the massive A68 iceberg up close.
Katheryn Hansen, a science writer with NASA, went on another flyover on Nov. 12. She shared her first impressions on NASA’s website:
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. 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.