These photos were sent from the recent launch of the weather balloon in New Hampshire as part of the educational/research project known as SMART (I wrote about it last week). When the balloons get to 90,000 to 100,000 feet up, the air is so thin that the pressure of their innards makes them explode. These photos were taken from a video, says UNH Prof. Charles Smith: “The video takes 3 or 6 frames each second (I cannot remember which) so the 4-image sequence is a little less than or a little greater than 1 second in the life and death of latex.”
About Granite Geek
Dave Brooks has written a science/tech column since 1991 – yes, that long – and has written this blog since 2006, keeping an eye on topics of geekish interest in and around New Hampshire, from software to sea level rise, population dynamics to printing (3-D, of course). He moderates monthly Science Cafe NH discussions, beer in hand, and discusses the geek world regularly on WGIR-AM radio..
Brooks earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics but got lost on the way to the Ivory Tower and ended up in a newsroom. He has reported for newspapers from Tennessee to New England. Rummage through his bag of awards you’ll find oddities like three Best Blog prizes from the New Hampshire Press Association and a Writer of the Year award from the N.H. Farm and Forest Bureau, of all places. He joined the Concord Monitor in 2015.