Found in the northwest corner of Greenland, the Leidy Glacier faces a barrier as it meets the Olriks Fjord that it feeds into: rock. This image shows how, even for a giant, hulking slab of ice and rock, the path of least resistance is often the most favourable.
Fed by the Academy Glacier, which is upstream and inland, Leidy is certainly no weakling. But ice is no match for the rocky islands that block its path into the Fjords. The resulting zig-zags of white are the glacier simply flowing around the rock, almost as if it were liquid — albeit moving slightly more slowly. The image was acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite. [NASA]