IN AN EFFORT to show his son science was fun (and that he was a pretty cool dad), a New York father sent his iPhone into space with a HD camera, an empty takeaway box, and a weather balloon – and captured the most impressive amateur video ever of the stratosphere.
Brooklyn cinematographer Luke Geissbuhler’s contraption – which included some camping grade handwarmers and a note from son Max – reached a height of nineteen miles, or about 100,000 feet, which is high enough to show the earth’s curvature and a black sky above the atmosphere.
It filmed for six minutes, before the low pressure at that height caused the helium to expand and the balloon to burst, at which point the capsule came slowly back to earth, landing 30 miles outside its take off point. There, it signalled to its owners via the phone’s GPS, and they went and picked it up.
This is what they discovered when they uploaded the video:
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