Cosmos Editorial
At this time of the year everything is dark in Antarctica. The sun won’t been seen again for quite some time. That doesn’t mean that everything stops.
Take the Larsen C ice shelf: since last summer, scientists have watched a huge crack slowly crawl across it, one which will sooner or later result in one of the biggest icebergs ever seen breaking off into the ocean. {%recommended 4695%}
The crack is still moving, and scientists are still watching, now with the aid of the Thermal InfraRed Sensor (TIRS) aboard the Landsat 8 satellite. The crack is the thin line heading upwards in the image above, taken on 17 June.
The speed of movement of the soon-to-be fragment has greatly increased in recent days, in a sign that break-off is imminent.
When this massive iceberg calves, the Larsen C ice shelf will lose more than 10 percent of its area. Scientists believe the remainder of the shelf will be less stable afterwards, and the whole thing may eventually break up in the same way that its neighbour Larsen B did in 2002, after a similar gigantic chunk broke off.
Read more at NASA’s Earth Observatory.
