Icefields near Adelaide Island, Antarctica Peninsula, Antarctica

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This half-meter resolution image shows ice fields near Adelaide Island (on the west) which is a large, mainly ice-covered island, 75 miles (121 km) long and 20 miles (32 km) wide, lying at the north side of Marguerite Bay off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The island lies within the Argentine, British and Chilean Antarctic claims and is protected from commercial exploitation by the Antarctica Treaty implemented in 1959. Antarctica is perhaps the world’s greatest unspoiled and relatively unexplored wildernesses. About 98 percent of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in thickness. According to news reports the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming spots on the planet. GeoEye tasked its GeoEye-1 satellite to collect this image on April 18, 2012 while flying 423 miles (681 km) above the Earth at an average speed of 17,000 mph (four miles per second.) Mandatory photo credit, “GeoEye satellite image.”

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