Ice shelf twice the size of Manhattan set to break away from Antarctica?

New Delhi: An ice shelf which is roughly twice the size of Manhattan has been spotted by NASA scientists, forming across one of Antarctica's ice shelves.

It has also raised prompting concerns that the ice shelf might break off soon and produce an iceberg.

As the ice shelves are already floating attached to the perimeter of Antarctica, they do not cause rise in sea level by breaking away. But, they slow down ice loss from the centre of the continent when they're attached and it does contribute to sea level rise when that process speeds up.

According to Sciencealert.com, the 50-km-long crack was first spotted back in December 2013 by the Landsat 8 satellite. It is located on the Nansen Ice Shelf which is around 35-km across and 50-km long, and situated on the Southern Ocean's Terra Nova Bay.

A satellite imagery has shown that the ice shelf is still attached to the continent, and coming into south-coast winter it's got a better chance of hanging on. But the ice shelves can still break way, regardless of the temperature.