This is Currently the World's Largest Iceberg

By Nancy Atkinson May 24, 2021
This is Currently the World's Largest Iceberg

A gigantic chunk of ice recently broke off from an ice shelf in Antarctica, and is currently the world’s largest iceberg. The iceberg, dubbed A-76, measures around 4,320 square km (1,670 square miles) in size. At 170 km (106 miles) in length and 25 km (15 miles) wide, the iceberg is slightly larger than the Spanish island of Majorca, and bigger than the state of Rhode Island in the US.

A-76 was captured in the above image by ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite. Below is an animation of the iceberg calving off the Ronne Ice Shelf.

This animation of images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission shows the giant slab of ice breaking off from the Ronne Ice Shelf, lying in the Weddell Sea, on 13 May 2021. Credit: ESA

While A-76 is huge, it's not the biggest ever. It is only about one-third the size of the biggest iceberg in recorded history, B-15 which calved off of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf 21 years ago. The B-15 iceberg covered more than 10,878 square km (4,200 square miles) when it broke away, according to NASA's Earth Observatory

The iceberg was spotted by the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed with the Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery. The Sentinel-1 mission consists of two polar-orbiting satellites that rely on C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging, which can take images day or night. This allows almost constant year-round viewing of remote regions like Antarctica.

Icebergs are named based on the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted, with then a sequential number when the iceberg breaks off. Antarctica is divided into quadrants, with the letters A, B, C and D used to denote the different regions. A-76 was spotted in the Bellingshausen/Weddell Sea quadrant and was the 76th iceberg tracked by the U.S. National Ice Center.

Source: ESA

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com