Weather satellites have captured a massive iceberg peeling off of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf. The iceberg is estimated to be 11,000 square kilometres in size. According to Matthew Lazzara, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Antarctic Meteorological Research Center, the iceberg is about 295 kilometers in length and 37 kilometers wide. "This is a very big iceberg, close to a record if not a new record," said Lazzara. "It's not often that you see them of this magnitude."

The Ross Ice Shelf Iceberg as seen from the NOAA-15 weather satellite. Image: University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Images of the iceberg from two polar orbiting satellites were made available by the UW-Madison Antarctic Meteorological Research Center, a research center supported by the National Science Foundation and housed within the UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center.

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration polar orbiter as well as a polar orbiter of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program gathered the data for the images which were assembled at the UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center. Each satellite orbits the Earth, pole to pole, at an altitude of about 700 kilometers.