美國宇航局在南極冰川看到18英里長的裂縫

18 Mile Crack in Antarctica Discovered by NASA
美國宇航局在南極洲發現18哩長裂紋
2011-11-03

18-Mile Crack Seen by NASA in Antarctic Glacier
美國宇航局在南極冰川看到18英里長的裂縫
2012-02-03

美國宇航局在南極冰川看到18英里長的裂縫
18-Mile Crack Seen by NASA in Antarctic Glacier
By Ned Potter |
ABC News –
Fri, Feb 3, 2012
Translation by Autumnson Blog

Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, seen from NASA's Terra satellite. NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS; U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.
南極松島冰川，從美國宇航局的Terra衛星看到。
美國宇航局/戈達德空間飛行中心/日本經濟產業省/ ERSDAC/ JAROS; 美國/日本ASTER科學隊。

Antarctica is so vast that the pictures give you no sense of scale. The pencil-thin line across the satellite image of Pine Island Glacier (above) is actually more than 18 miles long, 800 feet across in places, and 180 feet deep.
南極洲是如此廣大因此照片不會給你規模感，鉛筆幼的線橫跨松島冰川（上面）的衛星圖像實際上是多於18英里長、在很多地方800英尺寬及180英尺深。
And it's growing. In the next few months, scientists expect the glacier to create an iceberg about 350 square miles in area. It will probably float northward, melting as it goes.
和它在增長中，在未來的幾個月中，科學家們預計冰川會創建一個面積約350平方公里的冰山，可能會向北漂浮，邊融邊去。
"Pine Island Glacier is losing ice very quickly, about six meters per year," said Michael Studinger of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which sent an expedition called Operation IceBridge to Antarctica in October in an old DC-8 jetliner, modified for scientific operations. It spotted the break in the ice. Earth-observing satellites have been watching it since.

"These things happen on a semi-regular basis in both the Arctic and Antarctic, but it's still a fairly large event," said John Sonntag, Instrument Team Lead for Operation IceBridge, in video recorded on the plane. "So we wanted to make sure we captured as much of that process as we could.

"A lot of times when you're in science, you don't get to capture the big stories as they happen, because you're not there at the right place at the right time," he said, "but this time we were."

To scientists, this is more than a vast spectacle. Both polar caps are losing ice, and researchers studying the world's climate say they want to understand the process.

http://news.yahoo.com/18-mile-crack-seen-nasa-antarctic-glacier-205345573--abc-news.html