Massive Breaking Glacier Seen From Space [PICS]

A 46-square-mile chunk of the Petermann Glacier on the northwestern coast of Greenland broke off on July 16, and NASA's Aqua satellite caught the whole thing.

Just one day after the calving, Aqua saw a large opening between the glacier and the iceberg that had broken free. Because the satellite passes over the area multiple times per day, it was able to snap crystal-clear shots of the iceberg slowly drifting downstream.

“The floating extension is breaking apart,” said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California–Irvine. “It is not a collapse but it is certainly a significant event.”

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Because the tip of the Petermann Glacier connects to the Arctic ocean, it periodically calves icebergs. Its last notable break was in August 2010 when a massive 100 square miles of ice calved.

Often described as a large "ice tongue," the 43-mile long glacier is squeezed into a narrow opening that's about 9.3 miles wide.

Images courtesy of The Earth Observatory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center