Stop What You’re Doing and Look at This Gorgeous Larsen C Satellite Image

It might look like a film negative but it’s much more high tech than that. Landsat-8 has a thermal infrared sensor on board, which captures images based on temperature. In the case of this image, the black is the cooler ice while the bright white is the warmer ocean waters surrounding it.

The image is equal parts eye candy and scientific goldmine. The dark patches between the ice shelf and iceberg A68 show the icy detritus left behind in the wake of the massive calving event. The thin slivers of white cutting across the iceberg also reveal more details of how the elemental forces of wind and water are clawing away at its massive edifice, which contains enough ice to fill 463 million Olympic swimming pools.

The gray areas laced with white on the right side of the image show the sea ice that iceberg A68 will have to push through as currents carry it off into the Weddell Sea and points yet unknown.

So yeah, NASA has delivered a pretty spectacular and informative satellite image. Your move, ESA.