ESA - Observing the Earth - Understanding Our Planet - Wide-viewing Envisat tracks 'son of B-15' iceberg's odyssey around Antarctica

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Wide-viewing Envisat tracks 'son of B-15' iceberg's odyssey around Antarctica

31 August 2004

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Animation of several Envisat ASAR Global Monitoring Mode (GMM) images between 25 April 2004 and 18 June 2004. The imaged area is the Amery Sea, located at 65 deg. south latitude and 70 deg. east longitude.
The animation shows the displacement of large icebergs, including the B15-D iceberg (long white rectangle). B15-D is part of the immense B15 iceberg, originating from calving of the Ross Ice Shelf that split into 11 pieces in March 2000. B15-D is in itself huge - 50 km-long and 12 km-wide - travelling around the Antarctica continent. In a two-months timeframe, the B15-D iceberg has moved westwards by about 400 km at an average speed of 5 metres/minute. Since its birth in 2000, it has travelled a quarter of the way around the coast of Antarctica. Another iceberg (round shape) is following B-15D. It might be the D-14 iceberg.

Click here to see the high resolution animation.

Credits: ESA

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Artist's impression of the CryoSat satellite in orbit.

The launch of the CryoSat spacecraft was unfortunately aborted on 8 October 2005 due to a malfunction of its Rockot launcher, which resulted in the total loss of the spacecraft.

At the latest meeting of the European Space Agency's Earth Observation Programme Board, which took place at ESA’s Headquarters in Paris on 23 and 24 February 2006, ESA received the green light from its Member States to build and launch a CryoSat recovery mission, CryoSat-2.

Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab

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Envisat Global Monitoring Mode mosaic of Antarctica using data acquired during April and May 2004. Working in GMM, the ASAR instrument can provide regular information on areas such as Antarctica where, due to constant cloud cover, the use of optical data is unable to support scientific investigations. Here, ASAR GMM has mapped the Antarctica Continent to detect and monitor iceberg drift. A multitude of scans was performed over the Amery Sea in East Antarctica from April 1st to May 30, 2004. By combining all data, the displacement of icebergs, among which are the B-15D - seen to the right hand side of the image, appearing as multiple icebergs - can be highlighted.

Credits: ESA

Envisat results to be revealed

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ESA's ten-instrument Envisat environmental satellite has been observing the Earth for more than three years. Picture by EADS Astrium.

Credits: EADS Astrium