Great American Eclipse High Altitude Balloon Movie
FREE MOVIE- see the total solar eclipse from NEAR SPACE!
Please encourage your students to attend (and attend yourself!). This film highlights an important, year long, NASA sponsored project that UND’s Space Studies department participated in, and is relevant to a wide variety of disciplines, from fine arts to engineering.
Who? YOU!
What? Movie of the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE from 70,000 feet altitude!
Why? You’ve NEVER seen anything like this!
When? Thursday, September 21st at 6:00 p.m. Runs 30 minutes
Where? Odegard Hall Atmospherium
This summer, the UND Space Studies department traveled to Rexburg Idaho and launched a high altitude balloon during the total solar eclipse. The cameras carried by the balloon captured videos of the eclipse from nearly 70,000 feet altitude! See the 70 mile wide shadow of the moon swing across the Earth below, see the sunset that appears in 360 degrees around the horizon, see the balloon rip away from the payloads carrying the cameras after the eclipse, and see the cameras begin their fall down to Earth! This incredible footage offers a view of the eclipse like none you’ve ever witnessed- it can’t be seen from Earth or even from a plane. Take a 30 minute journey towards the heavens while the sun is blacked out- this is not something you want to miss!
UND’s balloon team was one of 55 teams launching a balloon during the eclipse- all of these teams were led by the Montana Space Grant for this NASA sponsored project. The teams were spread out along the path of totality from Oregon to South Carolina and captured the eclipse like never before. This was the biggest high altitude ballooning project in history!
What is a high altitude ballon? It’s a latex balloon that gets filled with helium to a diameter of 8 feet, fitted with cameras, GPSs, and scientific instruments, and launched into the air. The balloons travel up to 100,000 feet altitude- the very edge of space. At this altitude, they have expanded to nearly 40 feet in diameter. They then burst, and the instruments float back to Earth via parachute, where they are then tracked down and retrieved. High altitude balloons are an important platform for space research.
Denise Buckner
UND Space Studies MS Student
High Altitude Ballooning Student Lead
Graduate Research Assistant