Sea Ice Off East Antarctica’s Princess Astrid Coast

On April 5, 2015, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of sea ice off the coast of East Antarctica’s Princess Astrid Coast.

White areas close to the continent are sea ice, while white areas in the northeast corner of the image are clouds. One way to better distinguish ice from clouds is with false-color imagery. In the false-color view of the scene here, ice is blue and clouds are white.

The image was acquired after Antarctic sea ice had passed its annual minimum extent (reached on February 20, 2015), and had resumed expansion toward its maximum extent (usually reached in September).

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NASA