Satellite photo shows icy Elephant Island from orbit

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorA European Space Agency satellite called Sentinel-3 has taken a picture of Elephant Island in Antarctica, from orbit, and Space.com reports it is rather icy.

2. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorOf course it's icy. It's Antarctica. Did we send a satellite to confirm the cold?

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe image was captured on the thirtieth of September, shortly after the winter sea ice peak, and it covers about twelve hundred by seventeen hundred kilometres.

4. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorTwelve hundred by seventeen hundred, and the island is about fifty kilometres long. It's a footnote in its own photograph.

5. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorIt sits roughly nine hundred and thirty kilometres from the tip of Argentina's Tierra del Fuego, and some of the ice floes around it are comparable in size to the island itself.

6. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorIce the size of the island, sitting next to the island. Nobody at the seal community was consulted.

7. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe seals are elephant seals, and that's one of the two reasons for the name.

8. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorAnd the other?

9. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorSome people say the island is shaped like an elephant's head. Some people.

10. 

    Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorSo the seals live there and a few people squint. Nobody has asked the seals if it looks like an elephant.