Antarctica's giant iceberg has been photographed in striking new detail

First quality photograph of the Antarctic glacier
In early July, a rift formed on the ice shelf of Larten C in Antarctica caused the third largest glacier ever recorded to disengage from the mainland.

The ice block, called the A-68 glacier, may circulate for years in the open sea, and is amazing in size: about the size of Delaware, a mass of material like. Five and a half Everest, and enough to fill Lake Erie-more than twice as much.

Since it is mid-winter in Antarctica, the scientists were struggling to get good optical images of the iceberg. So far, they have relied on polar satellites like Sentinel-1, which uses radar to see through thick cloud cover.

However, a few days of clean weather at the end of July allowed Deimos-1 and Deimos-2, a pair of team satellites-a clear, visible view of the eastern Antarctic Peninsula.
(The satellites work together in space when one takes a large area and the other takes a higher resolution from the satellite)

Position of the ice shelf relative to the continent

A general picture of the ice shelf that hung up

The break in the detached ice shelf

First images at high resolution of the rift