NASA-ISRO’s NISAR Reveals a Giant Bird-Like Pattern Beneath Antarctica’s Frozen Landscape

A striking radar image captured by the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite has revealed what appears to be a giant hummingbird with outstretched wings hidden within the frozen landscape of East Antarctica, but the unusual shape is not an animal or mysterious object. It is a natural formation created around Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja, a mountaintop that rises above a stream of ice flowing northeast toward the ocean. As the moving glacier encounters the rocky obstruction, pressure builds within the ice and produces deep fractures known as crevasses, creating the sharp lines that give the formation its bird-like appearance. The image was generated using measurements gathered by NISAR’s L-band radar during system testing in August 2025, demonstrating how radar technology can reveal details that are difficult to see in ordinary optical photographs, where the landscape appears mostly white because of snow and ice. The vivid colours are not the natural colours of Antarctica but a scientific representation of how differently polarised microwave signals interacted with the frozen surface. Magenta areas generally indicate more regular surfaces such as smooth ice, while the sharp green features represent irregular or fractured regions where radar signals scattered from crevasses or partially penetrated the snow and ice. White areas indicate locations where both types of radar return were strong, possibly showing a mixture of smooth-surface and internal scattering. NISAR is equipped with complementary L-band and S-band radar instruments supplied through the joint NASA-ISRO mission, allowing scientists to study glaciers, ice sheets, forests, wetlands, agricultural areas and changes in Earth’s surface regardless of darkness or cloud cover. The Antarctic “hummingbird” is visually fascinating, but its greater scientific value lies in the detailed information it provides about glacier movement and the stresses forming inside the ice. By repeatedly observing polar regions, NISAR can help researchers track changing ice masses, understand how glaciers move toward the ocean and improve studies of climate-related changes and future sea-level rise. The image also arrives as NISAR begins making more of its processed radar data publicly available, opening new opportunities for scientists, governments and researchers to study environmental change and natural hazards around the world.