A massive chunk of ice that scientists say is roughly the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae Glacier and begun floating into the sea, in what is likely one of the biggest ice calving events in recorded human history.

The iceberg that cleaved from Jakobshavn –Greenland's fastest-moving glacier, according to NASA– is so large that , and was captured by both NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) satellites before and after it broke off earlier this month.

This calving event , ESA notes on its website, which means this chunk of ice "could cover the whole of Manhattan Island by a layer of ice [nearly 1,000 feet] thick."

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Satellite images taken by ESA suggest the calving occurred between Aug. 14 and Aug. 16, and it may have taken place in multiple events during that time. Today, the face of the glacier has been pushed inland by several miles, "to what appears to be its furthest easterly location ," ESA explains.

"The calving events of Jakobshavn are becoming more spectacular with time, and I am in awe with the calving speed and retreat rate of this glacier," Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in an "These images are a very good example of the changes taking place in Greenland."

Below are a pair of satellite images taken by NASA satellites, the first on July 31, 2015:

Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier, photographed by NASA's Landsat 8 satellite on July 31, 2015.

(NASA Earth Observatory)

The next photo, taken by an ESA satellite on Aug. 16, shows clearly how much ice has been lost from the calving front of the glacier since the beginning of the month:

This optical image of Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland, acquired by Sentinel-2A on 16 August 2015, indicates the area of ice lost between images acquired on 6 and 16 August.

(Copernicus Sentinel data (2015)/ESA)

The Jakobshavn Glacier is so closely monitored because it is responsible for draining a large portion (about 6.5 percent) of the Greenland ice sheet every year and produces about 10 percent of its icebergs, which amounts to about that are broken off into the sea each year.

According Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington, the end of each summer in the past several years has seen Jakobshavn’s calving front move about 2,000 feet farther inland than the summer before.

"What is important is that the ice front, or calving front, keeps retreating inland at galloping speeds," .

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Tim Elam works on deploying the Ice Diver, which if successful will melt its way through the ice with electrical heating. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)