Weird Rectangular Iceberg in Antarctica Isn’t Alone, NASA Photos Show (Video)

 Weirdly rectangular icebergs apparently aren’t that weird.The world recently got a look at a gloriously sharp-cornered “tabular iceberg” in a photo snapped by NASA scientist Jeremy Harbeck. Taken during an Oct. 16 research flight over the northern Antarctica Peninsula, the picture recently went viral.

Well, it turns out that Harbeck spotted multiple tabular bergs bobbing in the frigid sea close to the now-famous one that day. In fact, one other rectangular iceberg — let’s call it Tabular B, and the first-seen one Tabular A for simplicity’s sake — takes center stage in a newly released photo. [In Photos: Huge Icebergs Break Off Antarctica]

he new image also shows one corner of Tabular A poking above an engine of Harbeck’s plane, as well as the gigantic tabular berg known as A68 off in the distance.

A68, which is about the size of the state of Delaware, calved off the Larsen C ice shelf in July of 2017. Tabular A and Tabular B, along with a number of other similar sheet-cake bergs in the area, are products of that same breakup, NASA scientist John Sonntag said in a newly released video featuring footage from Harbeck’s flyover.

“I was actually more interested in capturing the A68 iceberg that we were about to fly over, but I thought this rectangular iceberg was visually interesting and fairly photogenic, so on a lark, I just took a couple photos,” Harbeck said in a NASA statement Tuesday (Oct. 23).