NASA discovers gigantic iceberg, three times size of Manhattan in Antarctica

Iceberg
NASA

NASA has discovered a gigantic iceberg which is three times the size of Manhattan in Antarctica. The American space agency made this startling discovery during Operation Ice Bridge, a project aimed at surveying the cold continent's shifting glaciers and sea ice.

The United States National Ice Centre revealed that the newly discovered iceberg named B-46 is approximately 87 square miles in size. It should be noted that Manhattan is just 22.7 square miles in size, which makes this iceberg three times the size of this American city. Experts believe that this gigantic iceberg could have broken off from the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica.

Interestingly, the huge iceberg has already started breaking down which is absolutely a natural phenomenon. Scientists are now planning to analyze whether the rate at which icebergs melt and break up is changing.

This is not the first time that NASA is spotting weird icebergs in Antarctica. A few weeks ago, they spotted an ice sheet nearly cut to perfection in Antarctica and the perfectly cut 90-degree angles seem quite unnatural in the first glance. The discovery of this rectangular iceberg was also the result of Operation Ice Bridge.

As the news about the rectangular iceberg surfaced online, many conspiracy theorists argued that they were built by advanced aliens visiting the polar regions. These conspiracy theorists claimed that advanced extraterrestrials are secretly living in Antarctica with the help of elites. However, experts dismissed the alien angle and made it clear that these formations are completely natural. Scientists revealed that the rectangular iceberg spotted by NASA is actually a tabular iceberg.

Unlike normal icebergs, tabular icebergs usually have steep, nearly vertical sides and a flat plateau top. The angles of these tabular icebergs will be initially very close to 90 degrees, but wind waves and sea spray will fade away the edges of these icebergs in the course of time.

This article was first published on November 12, 2018
Related topics : Nasa
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