Contemplating 10 the world’s most powerful icebreakers

Icebreaker Aurora Australis of Australia. Photo: WIKIPEDIA/ BAHNFREND

Finland’s icebreaker Otso. (Photo: WIKIPEDIA/ JUKKA KOSKIMIES)

CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, the Canadian Coast Guard's Heavy Arctic Icebreaker
Photo: WIKIPEDIA/ VERNE EQUINOX

USCGC Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) is the United States' largest and most technologically
 advanced ice breaker (Photo: WIKIPEDIA/U.S. COAST GUARD/DOD)

Polarstern (meaning pole star) is a German research ice breaker of the Alfred Wegener
Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven. (Photo: WIKIPEDIA/ TVABUTZKU1234)

Rossiya is a Russian Arktika-class nuclear-powered ice breaker.  As of 2012, she is
the oldest nuclear-powered ice breaker in service
Photo: SPUTNIK/ SERGEY ESHENKO

Soviet Union is also a nuclear-powered icebreaker. Photo: SPUTNIK/ SERGEY SUBBOTIN

NS 50 Let Pobedy, translated as 50 Years of Victory or Fiftieth Anniversary of Victory,
is a Russian Arktika-class nuclear-powered ice breaker and the largest nuclear-powered
 ice breaker in the world (Photo: SPUTNIK/ VLADIMIR ASTAPKOVICH)

The NS Yamal is a Russian Arktika class nuclear-powered ice breaker operated by Atomflot
(formerly by the Murmansk Shipping Company). Photo: SPUTNIK/ VALERIY MELNIKOV

And the world’s biggest, most powerful icebreaker, the Arktika of Russia, in a ship
launching ceremonyin St. Petersburg. (Photo: SPUTNIK/ SVYATOSLAV AKIMOV)