[ad_1] In between beaming internet to people in developing countries and sometimes passing for UFOs, Alphabet’s Loon balloons have been busy helping scientists study how our planet works. A team led by Stanford professor Aditi Sheshadri recently published a report on gravity waves, ripples created by gravity when it pushes down on air forced up into the Earth’s upper […]
Category: balloon
NASA will use a huge stratospheric balloon to study newly-formed stars
[ad_1] The telescope itself consists of an 8.4-foot wide dish antenna along with mirrors, lenses and detectors designed to capture far-infrared light. Because far-infrared telescopes need to be kept cold, it will also carry a cryocooler that keeps the detectors close to -451.3 degrees Fahrenheit, just a shade above absolute zero. NASA, ESA, N. Smith […]
Samsung’s ‘SpaceSelfie’ balloon crashed in someone’s yard
[ad_1] The balloon wasn’t small or simple. The entire apparatus spanned half the size of a basketball court and was meant to float about 65,000 feet above the Earth (not technically in space, we’d add), collecting selfies from the ground, superimposing them on live photos of the planet and returning them to the sender. It […]
Alphabet’s internet balloons have spent a million hours in the stratosphere
[ad_1] The record comes in part through the way the balloons operate. Instead of fighting the wind, they use AI to change their altitude and ride currents to their destination. That leads to routes that can be long and winding, but don’t require massive amounts of energy. Loon even encourages its balloons to “stroll” so […]