World’s largest iceberg shows up like island on satellite images. It may run aground

An eerie “white blob” recorded floating through the south Atlantic by a NOAA satellite has been identified as the world’s largest iceberg.

NOAA Satellite and Information Service released time-lapse video Tuesday, showing the massive chunk of ice is about 130 miles off the remote island of South Georgia, where experts fear “it may run aground in shallow coastal waters.”

Known as A-68A, the iceberg was roughly the size of Delaware when it snapped off Antarctica’s Larsen-C Ice Shelf in July 2017, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. It’s now 94 miles long and 30 miles wide, which is about the same size as South Georgia island (104 miles wide and 23 miles long), NASA says.

“More than three years later, it is still considered the largest iceberg despite having shrunken in size,” the NOAA reported Tuesday.

“The local government of South Georgia is keeping an eye on its trajectory, since there is a chance it may run aground in shallow coastal waters. If it does get stuck near the island, the iceberg may potentially harm local ecosystems and wildlife.”

An iceberg did just that in 1998 and created havoc by blocking penguins and seals from their feeding grounds, NOAA says. “Many chicks and seal pups perished during the long trek to get around it,” it was reported.

South Georgia island is a British territory in the southern Atlantic and British aircraft reconnaissance forces reported Dec. 4 that the iceberg remains “on its course towards the island.”

An iceberg that huge is typically heavily monitored by the world — for the sake of cruise ships — but the global pandemic brought that industry to a stop, according to British officials. Adding to the challenges: A-68A is so large, aerial observation equipment has found it “impossible to capture its entirety in one single shot,” British officials reported.

NOAA’s geostationary Goes East satellite has a unique advantage, recording images from an “orbital position 22,000 miles above the surface of the Earth.” The satellite tracked the iceberg for three weeks, from Nov. 17 through Dec. 7, using “high-resolution imagery,” NOAA said.