ESA - Observing the Earth - Understanding Our Planet - ESA contribution to International Polar Year 2007-2008

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ESA contribution to International Polar Year 2007-2008

1 March 2007

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Vast expanse of ice sheet on Greenland

Credits: ESA

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An enormous iceberg, C-16, rammed into the well-known Drygalski Ice Tongue, a large sheet of glacial ice and snow in the Central Ross Sea in Antarctica, on 30 March 2006, breaking off the tongue’s easternmost tip and forming a new iceberg. Envisat’s ASAR acquired these images in Wide Swath Mode (WSM), providing spatial resolution of 150 metres. ASAR can pierce through clouds and local darkness and is capable of differentiating between different types of ice.

Credits: ESA

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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 - P. CARRIL

Background to International Polar Years

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This image of South Greenland was acquired on 16 February 2006 by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), working in Reduced Resolution mode.

Credits: ESA