The budding team of scientists from the IES La Bisbal school in Spanish Catalonia successfully completed a rather interesting science project. These four Spanish students managed to take a couple of incredibly beautiful images of earth with a £ 56 camera and a latex balloon from above 20 miles.

Under the guidance of their teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol carried out their experiment after schools hours, on afternoons and didn’t even spare their summer holidays. After conducting an initial research, the experiment was carried out. The latex balloon was inflated with helium gas and weighed 1500 g, and sensor equipment and a digital Nikon camera which weighed 1.5 kgs was attached to it. Hoping that the balloon would cross 30,000 feet, which is the altitude at we travel by airplanes, as the balloon travelled upwards at 270 meters per minute.

The high tech sensor of Google Earth and the onboard radio receiver was used to monitor the progress of the balloon .On reaching the altitude of 100,000 feet, the balloon deflated and recovered from the earth. The experiment which was to prove that they could accurately measure the atmospheric conditions at 30,000 meters, take pictures successfully and retrieve the instruments attached as well after the balloon deflates was a success.

The experiments also garnered the attention of not only its school but also of the University of Wyoming in the US and the team keeps those interested updated through their blogs.