Friday, February 03, 2012

Antarctica’s 19-Mile Ice Crack Will Produce New York-Sized Iceberg

TPM

The Big Apple is about to get some competition down south. A New York City-sized iceberg will eventually split off of Antarctica as a result of a 19-mile long crack on a glacier on the Western part of the world’s southernmost continent, according to NASA.

The crack was first observed up-close on the Pine Island Glacier in mid-October 2011 by NASA scientists working on Antarctica, the agency explained.

Later in November, NASA’s Terra AM satellite — the same one that reportedly suffered “interference” from the ground that was speculated to be the result of Chinese hackers — snapped a photo of the crack using its ASTER instrument, a high spatial resolution instrument that serves as an orbital “zoom” lens, which can close-up on land features with incredible detail.............

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