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Where is it?Foxe Basin in Nunavut , Canada [ 68.79136545 , -80.08562796 ]
What ’s in the photo?A bandage of coke - get across sea ice in the shape of a Starfleet badge
This bright white patch of snow-covered sea ice was spotted by NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite in 2012. It shares a striking resemblance to the Starfleet badges worn by characters in the Star Trek franchise.
Which satellite take the photo?NASA ’s Earth Observing-1 ( EO-1 )
When was it taken?July 26 , 2012
This 2012 planet image seize an strange snow - topped structure place among a sea of dirty , fracture sea ice in northerly Canada . The curving white claw resembles the rounded , arrowhead - shape badges trap to the uniforms of fancied Starfleet officeholder , such as James T. Kirk and Jean - Luc Picard , in the iconic " Star Trek " dealership .
The satellite spotted the quirky feature in Foxe Basin — a shallow , 316,000 - straight - mile ( 819,000 square km ) organic structure of weewee north of Hudson Bay . The complex body part is draped around a group of petite , bouldery island , known as the Manning Islands .
The icy arrowhead " was credibly because of snow getting immobilise in uncut , carinated ice that formed as it ran up against the Manning Islands,“Nathan Kurtz , chief scientist of the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory atNASAGoddard Space Flight Center , toldNASA ’s Earth Observatoryin 2014 . The 1.5 - mile - wide ( 2.5 km ) patch appeared to be multi - yr sea glass , meaning it was made up of ice dating back several old age , he lend .
During the summertime , when this photo was take , Arctic sea ice begins to melt and break apart into thousands of smaller fragment that finally relegate away and melt whole . In this vitrine , a majority of those fragment had a muddy brown color , which was a result of maculate from deposit that got dragged up from the seafloor , according to Earth Observatory .
Related : See all the best images of Earth from space
Some of the large sherd of ice in the photo are peppered with small puritanical dot . These are dissolve ponds , which are shallow puddles of urine that form on the surface of the deoxyephedrine as it mellow out .
The weewee surrounding these sea water ice fragments are rich in phytoplankton , which makes them a hot spot for a all-inclusive variety of maritime beast including Arctic tern ( Sterna paradisaea),seals , walruses ( Odobenus rosmarus),polar bears(Ursus maritimus ) , narwhals ( Monodon monoceros ) and beluga whales ( Delphinapterus leucas ) .
This photo was strike during a disk - down in the mouth year for Arctic ocean ice . In 2012 , the minimum sea ice extent — the lowest amount of sea shabu reportage in a given year — was the down since records began in 1979 , theNational Snow and Ice Data Center ( NSIDC ) reported at the time .
By Aug. 2 that year , which was around seven days after the photo was rent , there was " very little ice left " in Foxe Basin , NASA representatives write .
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The 2012 record still stand to this Clarence Day . However , late years have also see very low minimal ocean ice extent thanks to the increasing force of man - caused clime alteration .
This is not the first prison term that eagle - eyed science - fabrication enthusiast have pick out the Starfleet badge in planet photograph of oursolar system .
In 2019 , researchersspotted the shape on the aerofoil of Marsin photos from NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter . In this case , the arrowhead shape was likely the result of strong wind sculpting the Red Planet ’s rocks .
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