Iceberg A22a, South Atlantic Ocean
| Description | English: This astronaut photograph illustrates the remains of a giant iceberg—designated A22A— that broke off Antarctica in 2002. The iceberg was photographed at a location of 49.9 degrees south latitude, 23.8 degrees west longitude, which is about a third of the distance from South America towards Cape Town, South Africa. A22A is one of the largest icebergs to drift as far north as 50 degrees south latitude, bringing it beneath the daylight path of the International Space Station (ISS). Crew members aboard the ISS were able to locate the ice mass and photograph it, despite the great masses of clouds that often accompany winter storms in the Southern Ocean. The crew’s viewing angle was oblique (not looking straight down) from a point to the west of the berg, and the time of day was early afternoon, as shown by the orientation of the cloud shadows. Dimensions of A22A in early June were 49.9 by 23.4 kilometres, giving it an area of 622 square kilometres, or seven times the area of Manhattan Island. |
| Date | 18 June 2007 |
| Source | NASA Earth Observatory
http://commons.wikimedia.org/ |
| Author | Image provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. |
| Camera location | 48° 48′ 00″ S, 24° 00′ 00″ W |
| Permission | Public Domain |
| Licensing | This file is in the public domain because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.) |
From
Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/
