Image of the Day: CRAAAACK! SPLIT! A Giant Iceberg Calves from Antarctica (Again...)

A major iceberg cracked off the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica between Nov. 9 and 11, 2013. (Source: NASA Earth Observatory) It has been anticipated since October, and now a large iceberg has finally split away from the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica. This is one big chunk of floating ice — 21 by 12 miles, or 252 square miles. (That's a bit smaller than the city state of Singapore.) The Landsat 8 image above, from NASA's Earth Observatory, shows it beginning to drift away on Nov. 13. (For more EO images of the event, go here.) This is by no means the first such large iceberg to calve from the glacier. A similar sized chunk cracked off and floated away just this past July. The fastest moving ice stream in Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier flows out of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is thinning rapidly as it ...