Scientists say that the world’s largest iceberg has broken off and started floating.
That was after more than three or four decades. This is one of the oldest ice blocks in the world.
The Antarctic ice sheet, known as A23a, is about 4,000 square kilometers (1,500 square miles) in size. That is three times the size of New York City.
Ice block A23a first broke away from the Antarctic coast in 1986.
This huge chunk of ice broke off from the Filchner-Rohn ice sheet in West Antarctica and once was a base for a Soviet research station.
However, after its base sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea, the iceberg became an ice island.
Now freed, the iceberg, weighing nearly a trillion metric tons, is being swept past the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula by strong winds and currents, recent satellite images reveal.
British Antarctic Survey glaciologist Oliver Marsh said it was rare for icebergs of this size to move.
Now scientists are closely monitoring its trajectory.
Scientists say the massive rock will be launched into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
They believe that it is moving towards the Southern Ocean along a route known as ‘Iceberg Alley’.
