The world’s previously largest iceberg, A23a, has been reworked into a good looking blob of stripy “blue mush,” signaling its imminent demise, new satellite tv for pc pictures reveal. The dying ice mass, which till just lately was thrice bigger than New York Metropolis, is among the oldest bergs on report, now nearing its fortieth birthday.
A23a is an oddity amongst icebergs. The megaberg, dubbed the “queen of icebergs,” broke off from Antarctica’s Filchner-Ronne Ice Sheet in the summertime of 1986, however shortly grew to become caught in place when its submerged backside caught on the seafloor. It remained trapped for a lot of the final 4 many years, barely shrinking in measurement as a consequence of its shut proximity to its dad or mum ice shelf. Nevertheless, A23a lastly broke free from its seafloor tether in 2020 and commenced drifting away from Antarctica.
Since then, the most important remaining chunk of the iceberg has drifted additional north into the South Atlantic Ocean, the place hotter waters circulating down from South America are taking their toll.
New pictures, captured on Dec. 26 by NASA’s Terra satellite tv for pc, reveal a totally unrecognizable model of A23a. The iceberg, which is now round a 3rd of its unique measurement, is proven lined with swimming pools of blue water encircled by thick borders of white ice, dubbed “ramparts.” Within the picture, A23a can be flanked by a pool of grey sludge, referred to as ice melange, which has doubtless leaked out from beneath the iceberg. It is usually additional surrounded by lots of of smaller bergs which have damaged off its edges.
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The “blue mush” seen on A23a is made up of soften ponds, which type when floor ice loses its structural integrity, Ted Scambos, a local weather scientist on the College of Colorado Boulder, mentioned in a NASA assertion. These ponds align into streaks, doubtless brought on by the “weight of the water sitting inside cracks within the ice and forcing them open,” Scambos added.
The cracks doubtless run parallel to grooves on the iceberg’s underside, which have been carved into the ice by centuries of motion over the bottom whereas nonetheless hooked up to the Filchner-Ronne Ice Sheet, Walter Meier, a senior analysis scientist on the Nationwide Snow & Ice Information Heart (NSIDC), mentioned within the assertion. “It is spectacular that these striations nonetheless present up after a lot time has handed,” added Chris Shuman, a retired glaciologist previously with the College of Maryland.
The colourful striations might have already began to vanish, in line with one other picture, snapped on Dec. 27 by an unnamed astronaut onboard the Worldwide House Station. This subsequent picture exhibits a extra uniform pool of blue water on the iceberg’s floor (see beneath).
It’s at the moment unclear how a lot of A23a stays or if it has already begun to vanish totally.
Attributable to its persistent huge measurement, A23a has repeatedly held the title of “world’s largest iceberg” all through its lengthy lifespan.
It most just lately regained the title in June 2023, when the earlier largest iceberg, A-76A, broke aside; then, it misplaced the accolade once more in September 2025, shortly after its encounter with South Georgia. (Some shops have misreported that A23a stays the world’s largest iceberg, doubtless as a consequence of an outdated web page from Guinness World Data.)
The world’s present largest iceberg is now D15A, which has a floor space of round 1,200 sq. miles (3,100 sq. kilometers), in line with NSIDC, making it a couple of hundred sq. miles smaller than A23a at its peak.
For extra unimaginable satellite tv for pc pictures and astronaut photographs, take a look at our Earth from house archives.
