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.
#PrathameshJaju, a 16-year-old amateur astronomer and astrophotographer from Pune, Maharashtra captured this extraordinary photo by collating as many as 55,000 images that formulate a size of a whopping 186 gigabytes!
🌑The 3D look of the Moon comes from the HDR Composite of two different images captured by him.
His Instagram post mentions: “This is my most detailed and clearest shot of the third quarter Mineral Moon. I captured around 50,000+ images over 186 GigaBytes of Data...
India is home to a plethora of unique and peculiar animals, which occupy a variety of habitats ranging from the extremely hot and cold deserts to mountainous terrains and all kinds of forests.
In the past few decades, however, several factors have been significantly contributing to the accelerated extinction of the myriad flora and fauna on Earth.
@NASA After being delayed over a year due to the pandemic, @NASA has launched a mission with scientific instruments aboard a self-propelled ocean glider and several aeroplanes to study the role of small-scale whirlpools and ocean currents in #Climatechange.
@NASA The Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) mission will deploy its suite of water and air-borne instruments to study what's happening just below the ocean's surface.
#WorldBeeDay: Despite their role in pollinating our plants, which are responsible for the sustenance of humans and mostly all other organisms on this planet, bee populations have been on a steady decline due to large-scale ignorance regarding their existence.
#WorldBeeDay2021: To conserve these ecologically significant pollinators, it is imperative to not only value their existence, but also understand its different components: habitats, behaviours, species diversity, shapes, colours and sizes.
The worst may be over with #CycloneTauktae, but its impact will continue to be felt for the next 48 hours—especially in parts of North and Northwest India.
This remnant system will gradually weaken into a well-marked low-pressure area by Wednesday night, and move further northeastwards, across #Rajasthan to #UttarPradesh, over the next two days.
#WeatherUpdate | Heavy rains with thunderstorms and very heavy falls at isolated places are very likely over Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya, West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan and coastal parts of Maharashtra.
A deep depression, which is the remnant of #CycloneTauktae over South Rajasthan, will move northeastwards, towards the West Himalayan region, gradually weaken, and become insignificant by Thursday morning.
(📸: Arvind Sharma/BCCL-Jaipur)
Under its influence, heavy to very heavy rainfall with widespread flooding, inundation and landslide risk is possible over the Western Himalayan region and the adjoining northwestern plains on Wednesday through Thursday.