Like every Antarctic iceberg that drifts north into the South Atlantic, Iceberg A-23A is surrendering to the ocean as spring arrives in the Southern Hemisphere.
Like every Antarctic iceberg that drifts north into the South Atlantic, Iceberg A-23A is surrendering to the ocean as spring arrives in the Southern Hemisphere. This breakup is notable, however, as it signals the imminent demise of one enormous, long-lived berg.
This image, captured on September 11, 2025, by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA ’s Terra satellite, shows the ongoing disintegration of Iceberg A-23A. Its largest remaining fragment spanned just over 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles)—still massive, and the world’s second-largest freely floating iceberg at that time. However, it had already lost about two-thirds of its area since it began drifting north from Antarctica several years earlier.
Nearby, large fragments that calved from A-23A—specifically Iceberg A-23G and Iceberg A-23I—spanned 324 square kilometers (125 square miles) and 344 square kilometers (133 square miles), respectively, at the time of this image. The U.S. National Ice Center names, tracks, and documents Antarctic icebergs with an area of at least 20 square nautical miles (69 square kilometers) or a length of at least 10 nautical miles (19 kilometers).
Read More: NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.
