India, Nov. 25 -- While continental in scale, the ozone hole over the Antarctic was small in 2025 compared to previous years and remains on track to recover later this century, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported.

The hole this year was the fifth smallest since 1992, the year a landmark international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals began to take effect, read the NASA website.

At the height of this year's depletion season from Sept. 7 through Oct. 13, the average extent of the ozone hole was about 7.23 million square miles (18.71 million square kilometers) - that's twice the area of the contiguous United States. The 2025 ozone hole is already breaking up, nearly three weeks earlie...