A team of A-Level students have filmed Earth from space using a helium balloon and an iPhone.
The science project took teenagers from Giles Academy in Boston, Lincolnshire, two years to plan and fundraise for.
On the shopping list for their spacecraft was a large balloon, a GPS tracker, a flight computer able to track altitude and an iPhone which filmed the whole flight.
Despite the planning and preparation, the flight did not quite go to plan at first.
Science teacher Andrew Castley said: “We had loads of pupils from school lined up to witness the big launch but the balloon hit a tree.
“By the time we got it down and relaunched it was home time so most of the children had left.
“It wasn’t until the morning that I showed them the incredible footage and they were blown away.”
Students managed to capture more than two-and-a-half hours of footage including the curvature of the earth and the deep black of space.
The phone reached 18 miles (29km) above the surface of Earth before the thinning atmosphere caused the balloon to burst.
The equipment then floated down safely with a parachute.
Mr Castley and his team found it using a GPS tracker some 40 miles away in Norfolk.
The teacher said: “I always do these crazy projects, I did one running on custard once.
“This has been phenomenal though and next I want to do live streaming and go even higher.”
Sky News
