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The Shirase Glacier retreated significantly between the 1997 and 2000 Antarctic Mapping Missions. Located in the Indian Ocean sector of Antarctica called Enderby Land, the Shirase drains a basin of about 165,000 square kilometers (about 64 square miles), which extends some 500 kilometers (310 miles) inland from the coast. The glacier appears in the lower central portion of this image at the head of the embayment. As the blue coastline from the 1997 Antarctic Mapping Mission indicates, the floating tongue of the Shirase extended about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) further northward from the current 2000 position. However, earlier coastline maps show that the extent of the Shirase is extremely variable. This image covers an area of about 375 kilometers (240 miles) by 240 kilometers (150 miles). Most of the image area offshore of the blue 1997 coastline is a mixture of bright-appearing icebergs and darker-appearing sea ice. The Antarctic Mapping Mission is a joint project between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. The project is led by Ohio State University in Columbus in partnership with the Alaska Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the Vexcel Corporation, Boulder, Colo. The Canadian Space Agency's RADARSAT-1 satellite carries a synthetic aperture radar, an imaging radar sensor that operates at C-band (5.3 GHz frequency) with horizontal transmit-horizontal receive polarization from an orbital altitude of about 800 kilometers (500 miles. The 1997 Antarctic Mapping Mission took place between Sept. 19 and Oct. 14 and mapped the entire Antarctic continent. The 2000 Antarctic Mapping Mission lasted from Sept. 3 to Nov. 4 and obtained complete coverage of Antarctica north of 82 degrees south latitude. Photo Credit: Canadian Space Agency/NASA/Ohio State University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Alaska SAR facility # # # # #
Description
The Shirase Glacier retreated significantly between the 1997 and 2000 Antarctic Mapping Missions. Located in the Indian Ocean sector of Antarctica called Enderby Land, the Shirase drains a basin of about 165,000 square kilometers (about 64 square miles), which extends some 500 kilometers (310 miles) inland from the coast. The glacier appears in the lower central portion of this image at the head of the embayment. As the blue coastline from the 1997 Antarctic Mapping Mission indicates, the floating tongue of the Shirase extended about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) further northward from the current 2000 position. However, earlier coastline maps show that the extent of the Shirase is extremely variable. This image covers an area of about 375 kilometers (240 miles) by 240 kilometers (150 miles). Most of the image area offshore of the blue 1997 coastline is a mixture of bright-appearing icebergs and darker-appearing sea ice. The Antarctic Mapping Mission is a joint project between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. The project is led by Ohio State University in Columbus in partnership with the Alaska Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the Vexcel Corporation, Boulder, Colo. The Canadian Space Agency's RADARSAT-1 satellite carries a synthetic aperture radar, an imaging radar sensor that operates at C-band (5.3 GHz frequency) with horizontal transmit-horizontal receive polarization from an orbital altitude of about 800 kilometers (500 miles. The 1997 Antarctic Mapping Mission took place between Sept. 19 and Oct. 14 and mapped the entire Antarctic continent. The 2000 Antarctic Mapping Mission lasted from Sept. 3 to Nov. 4 and obtained complete coverage of Antarctica north of 82 degrees south latitude. Photo Credit: Canadian Space Agency/NASA/Ohio State University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Alaska SAR facility # # # # #
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