Penguin Beach

A Penguin Beach. Members of the IceBridge team visited a colony of Magellanic penguins near Punta Arenas, Chile‘s southernmost region, on a no-flight day.    Image credit: NASA/ Maria-Jose Vinas

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NASA’s Operation IceBridge is an airborne science mission to study Earth’s polar ice.

More information: IceBridge.


NASA’s Operation IceBridge closed out its 2012 Antarctic season with two surveys of Antarctic glaciers and two long-awaited flights over sea ice in the Weddell Sea. These four flights bring the airborne science campaign to a successful end with a total of 16 science missions and a total mileage equivalent to more than three times around the Earth’s equator. In addition, researchers on the DC-8 answered questions from students in several U.S. states and Chile by text chat through the aircraft’s communication system.

Punta Arenas, Chile -world map

source NASA