Scientists are using their expertise and state-of-the-art technology to track the largest iceberg seen in modern times.

Nigel Houghton, of the space science and technology department of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Didcot, said satellite images showed the iceberg, which recently broke away from the Ross ice shelf in the Antarctic.

Bl5, as it has been named by the US National Ice Centre, is about 300km long and 40km wide.

Mr Houghton, who is responsible for cataloguing thousands of tapes of data from instruments on board a European remote-sensing satellite, said: "B15 began to break away from the ice shelf in the last weeks of March.

"It is great to be able to see these icebergs from satellites and we will be tracking this one with great interest." He added that once an iceberg was free from the ice shelf, it often moved quickly and there would be considerable interest in case it interfered with ocean shipping lanes.

Information from data received from tracking stations shows that the berg is splitting into two. Thermal images are being received by the ERS-2 European satellite, which also monitors the ice shelf.

**To view the images, visit www.atsr.rl.ac.uk/images/sample/

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