![iceberg underwater iceberg underwater](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/08/bd/4d/08bd4d31f997e68f3f15218f57fb50fe.jpg)
Icebergs that make it this far have been known to rapidly melt and end their life cycles here. When the May 2018 photograph was acquired, the berg was about 150 nautical miles northwest of the South Georgia islands. A previous image showed B-15Z farther south in October 2017, after it had ridden the coastal countercurrent about three-quarters of the way around Antarctica bringing it to the Southern Ocean off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.Ĭurrents prevented the berg from continuing through the Drake Passage instead, B-15Z cruised north into the southern Atlantic Ocean. Melting and breakup would not be surprising, given the berg’s long journey and northerly location. The little square shows the location of the iceberg when astronauts captured the image above, on May 22, 2018. As these images show, there’s already a large fracture along the center of the berg, and smaller pieces are splintering off from the edges. This chunk of ice – one of the only remaining pieces of the original iceberg – is likely nearing the end of its voyage.
![iceberg underwater iceberg underwater](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/59/5c/d9/595cd94eeccd8addbac607a03f541078.jpg)
The photo at top – taken on May 22, 2018, by astronauts aboard the International Space Station – shows the piece of the original iceberg called B-15Z. Just four pieces of B-15 are still big enough to be tracked by the National Ice Center (at least 20 square nautical miles, or 69 square km). Now in its 18th year drifting with the currents – being battered by wind and sea – B-15 has since fractured into many smaller bergs, and most have melted away. It’s still the biggest iceberg recorded so far from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf.
![iceberg underwater iceberg underwater](https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/1a6a925223f081976b2dc5f121c23f9412a4f77d1703e62f317eeccb0edcc4ac_1.jpg)
state of Connecticut when it broke from Antarctica in late March 2000. Iceberg B-15 was about the size of the U.S. When ISS astronauts shot this photo on May 22, this chunk of iceberg B-15 measured 10 nautical miles long and 5 nautical miles wide, still within trackable size.