Ballooning Around the Pole
Last Saturday, NASA launched the first of three missions in their Long Duration Balloon project in Antarctica. The balloons will "take advantage of the stratospheric anticyclone wind pattern circulating from east to west around the south pole," and likely take two or three trips around the pole at approximately 100,000 feet high. All three carry instruments to that look out to the universe: Super-TIGER, the mission launched over the weekend, is studying radiation in space; EBEX will look at cosmic background radiation; and BLAST-Pol will collect data about magnetic fields in the universe. The above image is a screenshot from the real-time tracker using updates from Super-TIGER's GPS, which you can follow here.
Image: NASA Wallops Flight Facility / Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility
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