NASA has started working on the ASTHROS mission, that will use a football stadium-sized balloon to carry a telescope up into the stratosphere over Antarctica.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Humans' understanding of how stars form
00:07 will reach new heights with this massive balloon.
00:09 NASA has started working on a new mission
00:12 that will carry a telescope into our stratosphere
00:15 with a 400-foot-wide balloon.
00:17 Tentatively set to launch in December 2023,
00:20 the instrument measures light with wavelengths
00:22 much longer than what is visible to the human eye
00:25 or far infrared light,
00:26 allowing it to study the motion and speed of gas
00:29 around newly formed stars.
00:31 To collect data, the balloon will need to hit an altitude
00:33 of roughly 130,000 feet.
00:36 That's about four times higher than commercial airlines fly.
00:39 NASA says that's still below the edge of space,
00:41 but high enough to see the light
00:42 without Earth's atmosphere interfering.
00:45 The football stadium-sized balloon
00:47 will ride on air currents above Antarctica
00:49 for about three weeks, studying four main targets,
00:52 including two star-forming regions in our galaxy.
00:56 NASA says for the first time,
00:57 it'll also detect and map two types of nitrogen ions,
01:01 which can reveal areas where winds
01:03 from massive star explosions have changed gas clouds
01:06 within these star-forming regions.
01:08 (upbeat music)
01:11 you