The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of the rift on the Petermann Glacier on September 7, 2008. The rift, which appeared by 2001, is filled with thin ice and covered with snow.
In a routine survey of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier, NASA scientists discovered a large crack in the ice which will soon lead to the birth of a new giant iceberg.
The amount of ice flowing from the Antarctic glacier has doubled in the span of three decades, and scientists think it could undergo even more dramatic changes in the near future.