Iceberg A23a

Image of the week: Iceberg A23a

 

Watching our Earth from space

Iceberg A23a
Iceberg A23a

This week’s image of the week is of the world’s largest iceberg A23a, near to the island of South Georgia in the Southern Ocean.

Last Updated

19 March 2025

Published on

10 March 2025

The image was captured by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites on 9 March 2025.

The A23a iceberg originally broke off from the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in West  Antarctica in 1986 and was then stuck on the floor of the Antarctic Ocean for over 30 years, until it recently started to move northwards.

Researchers have been closely monitoring the iceberg which now appears to have run aground near South Georgia. 

According to the US National Ice Center, the iceberg covers an area of over 3500 square kilometres and is currently the biggest iceberg in the world.  

Iceberg A23a

Iceberg image

This image was captured by the OLCI instrument on one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites on 9 March 2025.

EUMETSAT operates the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites, in cooperation with ESA, and delivers the marine data on behalf of the European Union.

More info

Visualise Sentinel-3 data on EUMETView or WEkEO

The iceberg can be seen from Meteosat-12 on EUMETView (updated every ten minutes)

Meteosat weather satellites and Earth view livestream

British Antarctic Survey

US Antarctic iceberg data

Iceberg A23a

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