Boys Weather Balloon 20 miles above Earth

Hey ATSers,

So I'm watching this video about how a kid built a weather balloon as a science project and it traveled 20 miles above Earth (which wound up landing in some guys yard and he called the cops cause he was freaked out) ...anyway....I'm watching this news clip and at 56 seconds there is a shot of the Sun...now maybe it's just me but everytime I've seen photos of the Sun compared to the distance of the Earth it seems pretty damn far away...but in this clip the Sun seems friggin close!!!

Take a look for yourselves and let me know your thoughts...AGAIN ..pause the video at 56 seconds:

Boys Weather Balloon Experiment

FYI..the feed was slow for me and be patient with the commercial at the beginning

reply to post by FreedomKnight


That's actually a really cool story.

Thanks for pointing it out!

reply to post by FreedomKnight


Here is a link to another one that shows the sun MUCH farther away the quality of the video is much better as well.

www.youtube.com...#!

Ive always wanted to do this.... i have lots of open room, no big cities nearby and the money to back it up... waiting for these guys who do this to come out with a kit

reply to post by steve95988


You don't need a kit, just a few hundred spare on the credit card, matey. It's just a balloon of sufficient buoyancy to obtain the height and a camera (one you don't mind losing) and maybe a GPS tracker so you can follow it on your computer at home..

As for the Sun looking weird, I don't think it is anything to be concerned about. At that height, it could have been ice on the lens distorting the light, or something similiar.