NASA has released an unusual, multicolored satellite photo of Alaska’s Malaspina Glacier, where the massive mass of ice looks like a fiery, pulsating blob of paint. The new image highlights recent discoveries at the glacier, including a “hidden lagoon.”

Glacier on Wrangel Street. Elias National Park on the state’s southeast coast covers approximately 1,680 square miles (4,350 square kilometers), making it the largest glacier in North America and the largest foothill glacier in the world; a type of winged glacier that rolls from mountains to flat land.

Malaspina Glacier is also known as Sit Tlain, which means “big glacier” in the Tlingit language spoken by the indigenous people of the region. The image was obtained on October 27 by the Landsat 9 satellite, which is jointly owned by NASA and the US Geological Survey. It was released by NASA’s Earth Observatory on November 25.

The picture is an image in artificial colors created with the help of infrared radiation. Yellow and orange colors are ice; red tones indicate water; Blue and green colors show where land and vegetation meet, respectively. Ridges or folds in the ice are moraines; They are bands of soil, rocks, and other debris that were scraped away as the glacier slowly advanced.

Also pictured is St. Also shown are the Seward Glacier, fed by the Malaspina Glacier in the Elias Mountains, and the Agassiz Glacier, fed by the same mountain range.

A study published in February in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth’s Surface found that the Malaspina Glacier’s ice volume had previously been overestimated by about 30%, but that if the entire ice mass melted, it could raise global mean sea level by 0.06 inches. (1.4 millimeters), studies have shown.

The study also revealed that the area of ​​deep red water located between the ice and the large land area at the tip of the glacier is a saltwater lagoon hiding in plain sight. The lagoon is warmer than scientists previously predicted due to its high salt content, which could accelerate the melting of ice.

Researchers discovered that subglacial channels containing water run through the rock beneath the glacier. These channels extend under the ice to a depth of 35 kilometers and can further accelerate the retreat of glaciers.