A huge iceberg, the world’s largest, has broken off from an ice shelf in Antarctica and is floating through the Weddell Sea, the European Space Agency said Thursday.
Called A-76 and roughly the shape of Manhattan but more than 70 times bigger, it was picked up on satellite images and is “currently the largest berg in the world”, the ESA said.
In comparison, with an area of 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi), it is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe.
This handout image released by The European Space Agency (ESA) on May 20, 2021, shows a view captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission of the A-76 iceberg off the Ronne Ice Shelf, in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica taken on March 9, 2021 - combined with a graphic of the Spanish island of Majorca for scale.
An iceberg the size of the island of Majorca has broken off from the Ronne ice pack in Antarctica, making it the largest iceberg in existence, according to images from a European Copernicus satellite, the European Space Agency said on May 20, 2021.
