Carried by a balloon the size of a football stadium, ASTHROS will use a telescope to observe
wavelengths of light that aren’t visible from the ground. Work has begun
on ASTHROS (short for Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High
Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths), a new
mission that will carry a cutting-edge 8.4-foot telescope high into the
stratosphere on a balloon that is tentatively planned to launch in December
2023 from Antarctica.
This illustration shows a high-altitude balloon
ascending into the upper atmosphere. When fully inflated, these balloons are
400 feet (150 meters) wide, or about the size of a football stadium, and reach
an altitude of 130,000 feet (24.6 miles or 40 kilometers).
Image
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab/Michael Lentz
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