14 DAY TRIAL // About a week ago, the massive Petermann Glacier on the coasts of Greenland released a massive iceberg into the North Atlantic Ocean. The process was observed by Earth-observation satellites. The same spacecraft now show the floating ice island in more detail.
The image above was captured using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument aboard the NASA Terra satellite. In this view, north is to the right.
The location where the iceberg broke off the glacier is clearly visible, as it's dotted with heavily fragmented ice. Interestingly, this ice island was produced two years after another massive iceberg broke off Petermann, under the influence of global warming.
“Nearly two years ago in July 2010, another large iceberg calved from the Petermann Glacier. That iceberg was estimated at roughly 97 square miles (251 square kilometers). The 2012 iceberg is estimated to be about half as big,” NASA says.