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Giant iceberg B-15A edges past floating ice pier

18 March 2005

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This ASAR Wide Swath Mode (WSM) image shows the B-15A iceberg edging past the end of the Drygalski ice tongue in McMurdo Sound. The image has a spatial resolution of 150 metres and was acquired on 16 March 2005 during Envisat orbit 15911.

Credits: ESA

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This animation combines ASAR images from 3 February to 8 March to show B-15A on the move again in the direction of the Drygalski ice tongue.

Credits: ESA

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Local McMurdo Sound bathymetry overlaid on a MODIS satellite image of McMurdo Sound. B-15A can be seen located between two shallow seamounts.

Figure created by Jessica Walker, GIS Analyst, Raytheon Polar Services Company, for the U.S. Antarctic Program. Bathymetry data provided by Dr. Fred Davey (Davey, F.J. 2004. Ross Sea Bathymetry, 1:2,000,000, version 1.0. Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences geophysical map 16. Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited, Lower Hutt, New Zealand); MODIS Imagery by NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center, USA; and GPS data on iceberg motion by Antarctic Meteorological Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.

Credits: NASA MODIS

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This Envisat ASAR Global Monitoring Mode (GMM) image shows the bottle-shaped B-15A icberg adjacent to the Drygalski ice tongue in McMurdo Sound. The smaller knife-shaped iceberg behind B-15A is B-15K. The image has a spatial resolution of one kilometre and was acquired 15 March 2005 during Envisat orbit 15898.

Credits: ESA

Ice in motion

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This annotated ASAR image from 10 January 2005 is orientated in a northerly direction along McMurdo Sound and shows the position of the Drygalski ice tongue as well as icebergs B-15A, B-15J, C-16, the knife-like B-15K and the US McMurdo base.

Credits: ESA

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This ASAR Wide Swath Mode (WSM) image shows B-15A headed towards the Drygalski ice tongue. The image has a spatial resolution of 150 metres and was acquired on 8 March 2005 during Envisat orbit 15798.

Credits: ESA

Twin-mode ASAR Antarctic observations

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This view of the entire continent of Antarctica is a mosaic of Envisat ASAR Global Monitoring Mode images acquired between 1 and 10 January 2005. The Ross Ice Shelf and McMurdo Sound are at the bottom side of the image. Working in GMM, the ASAR nstrument 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.

Credits: ESA

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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

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Artist's impression of CryoSat.

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