Rectangular iceberg spotted in sea off Antarctica

The so-called tabular iceberg was photographed by scientist Jeremy Harbeck and is notable for its unusually sharp edges, the US space agency said. "I thought it was pretty interesting; I often see icebergs with relatively straight edges, but I've not really seen one before with two corners at such right angles like this one had," Harbeck said on NASA's website. 

The sharp edges show that the iceberg was freshly calved from the shelf ice known as Larsen C, the post on the website explained.  NASA did not say how large the iceberg was.  In July 2017, the same ice shelf released the enormous iceberg A68, which became famous because of its size - 175 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide, making it roughly the same size as the US state of Delaware. 

The aerial survey is part of NASA's project "Operation IceBridge," which is designed to analyse changes in the polar ice and to understand how the polar regions are connected to the global climate. The researchers left Punta Arenas in Chile on October 10, and are expected to return on November 18.

is/ak (dpa)