A giant slab of ice almost seven times the size of Mumbai city has sheared off from the frozen edge of #Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, thereby becoming the largest #IceBerg in the world, according to the European Space Agency.
The #IceBerg dubbed A-76, measures around 4320 sq km in size—that is 170 km long and 25 km wide. In comparison, Mumbai’s total area is 603.4 sq km, while India’s capital city Delhi occupies about 1484 sq km.
The enormity of the #IceBerg makes it the largest in the world, snatching first place from the A-23A iceberg (approximately 3880 sq km in size), which is also located in the Weddell Sea.
The new #IceBerg was detected in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission. It was spotted by the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed from the US National Ice Center using Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery.
The Sentinel-1 mission consists of two polar-orbiting satellites that rely on C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging, returning data regardless of whether it is day or night, and allowing year-round observations of remote regions like #Antarctica.
After discovery, the names of the iceberg are traditionally derived from the #Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted, then a sequential number, then, if the #IceBerg breaks, a sequential letter.
One example is the big #Antarctic iceberg, A-68A, that threatened a penguin-populated island off the southern tip of South America last year. Scientists feared that it would collide with an island that is a breeding ground for penguins.
With the #Antarctic ice sheet warming faster than before, ice covers are melting to create more icebergs, especially around the Weddell Sea. As glaciers retreat, pieces of ice break off and float adrift until they break apart or crash into land.
While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.