A satellite image shows the largest iceberg in the world in slopes that may sweep it from Antarctica until its removal | environment

The giant ice floe is known as the A-76A. It is 135 kilometers long and 26 kilometers wide. This makes it the largest iceberg on our planet. Previously, this was the A-76, an ice mass of more than 4,300 square kilometers, which is twice the size of the province of Flemish Brabant. An A-76 collapsed off the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in 2021 and split into three pieces. The A-76A was the largest among them and itself became the largest new iceberg on Earth.

The A-76A has been floating quietly around Antarctica for more than a year, covering a distance of about 2,000 kilometers, and is barely melting. But NASA’s Terra satellite captured an image on Oct. 31 of an A-76A heading toward the mouth of the Drake Strait, a deep waterway connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans between Cape Horn in South Africa and the South Shetland Islands north of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The glacier is currently located between Elephant Island and the Southern Orkney Islands at the southern end of the strait, but appears to be drifting north in the coming weeks. The strong currents of icebergs entering the Drake Strait usually rush east, then drift north into warm waters, where they melt completely shortly thereafter.