Stonebreen’s Beating Heart – NASA Science
Edgeøya, an island in the southeastern part of the Svalbard archipelago, is defined by stark Arctic expanses and rugged terrain. Still, even here—halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole—life persists, from mosses to polar bears. The southern lobe of Stonebreen, a glacier that flows from the Edgeøyjøkulen ice cap into the Barents Sea, gives the landscape a different kind of life. Its ice pulses like a heart.
The apparent heartbeat comes from the ice speeding up and slowing down with the seasons. This animation, based on satellite data collected between 2014 and 2022, shows how fast the glacier’s surface ice moves on average during each month. In winter and spring, the ice flows relatively slowly (pink); by late summer, it races toward the sea at speeds exceeding 1,200 meters p...










