This image, acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) sensor on 26 November 2008, shows new rifts on the Wilkins Ice Shelf that developed from 10 August to 26 November 2008. These rifts joined previously existing rifts (denoted by blue-dotted line). The development of these rifts threatens to collapse the ice bridge that has been preventing the ice shelf from disintegrating and breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula.
Dr Angelika Humbert from the Institute of Geophysics, Münster University, provided the interpretations on the image.