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  Image: Geographic Location Direction Photo #: ISS028-E-34749 Date: Aug. 2011
Geographic Region: CANADA-N
Feature: HORSE ISLANDS, PETERMANN ICE ISLAND-A, LABRADOR SEA

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  View Low-Resolution Image  
  Melt Ponds, Petermann Ice Island

Note: This caption refers to the image versions labeled "NASA's Earth Observatory web site".

After more than a year and several thousand kilometers of sailing the seas, Petermann Ice Island is still drifting in the North Atlantic off the shores of Newfoundland, Canada. Once a hunk of ice fives times the size of Manhattan Island, the ice island has splintered several times since it dropped off the edge of Greenland's Petermann Glacier. Yet still it behaves a bit like the massive ice sheet it left 14 months ago.

Astronauts on the International Space Station used a digital camera to capture this view of Petermann Ice Island A, fragment 2, off of the northeast coast of Newfoundland on August 29, 2011. Spanning roughly 4 kilometers by 3.5 kilometers (2.5 by 2 miles), the ice island is covered with melt ponds and streams, much as the surface of Greenland looks in mid-summer.

As ice melts on top of the Greenland ice sheet, the melt water forms streams and pools in the depressions on the ice surface. Drawn downslope by gravity--much like streams on a mountainside--water also runs toward the edges of the ice. In some cases, it cracks through it and rushes to the bottom. Such processes appear to be at work on the ice island as well.

August 2011 was a busy month in the life of the ice island, according to the Canadian Ice Service. On August 7, it became grounded on a shoal or shallow seafloor off of St. Anthony, Newfoundland, where it sat for 11 days. By August 18, the ice island broke free and began drifting again, only to split into two large pieces about five days later. The Ice Service last reported on it on August 25.
 
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Images: All Available Images Low-Resolution 146k
Mission: ISS028  
Roll - Frame: E - 34749
Geographical Name: CANADA-N  
Features: HORSE ISLANDS, PETERMANN ICE ISLAND-A, LABRADOR SEA  
Center Lat x Lon: 50.4N x 55.8W
Film Exposure:   N=Normal exposure, U=Under exposed, O=Over exposed, F=out of Focus
Percentage of Cloud Cover-CLDP: 10
 
Camera: N2
 
Camera Tilt: HO   LO=Low Oblique, HO=High Oblique, NV=Near Vertical
Camera Focal Length: 400  
 
Nadir to Photo Center Direction: NE   The direction from the nadir to the center point, N=North, S=South, E=East, W=West
Stereo?:   Y=Yes there is an adjacent picture of the same area, N=No there isn't
Orbit Number: 3763  
 
Date: 20110829   YYYYMMDD
Time: 191849   GMT HHMMSS
Nadir Lat: 47.0N  
Latitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Nadir Lon: 59.5W  
Longitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Sun Azimuth: 245   Clockwise angle in degrees from north to the sun measured at the nadir point
Space Craft Altitude: 203   nautical miles
Sun Elevation: 34   Angle in degrees between the horizon and the sun, measured at the nadir point
Land Views: COAST, GLACIER, ISLAND  
Water Views: ICE  
Atmosphere Views:  
Man Made Views:  
City Views: MANHATTAN  
Photo is not associated with any sequences


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