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High-altitude balloons or stratostats are usually uncrewed balloons typically filled with helium or hydrogen and released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between 18 and 37 km (11 and 23 mi; 59,000 and 121,000 ft) above sea level. In 2013, a balloon named BS 13-08 reached a record altitude of 53.7 km (33.4 mi; 176,000 ft). [1]
A weather balloon, also known as a sounding balloon, is a balloon (specifically a type of high-altitude balloon) that carries instruments to the stratosphere to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde.
By human standards, helium is a non-renewable resource that cannot be practically manufactured from other materials. When released into the atmosphere, e.g., when a helium-filled balloon leaks or bursts, helium eventually escapes into space and is lost.
Sensors beam data back down to Earth every few seconds as winds carry the balloons up to 125 miles away. These sensors help collect critical temperature, humidity, wind and atmospheric pressure ...
One classical thermal escape mechanism is Jeans escape, [1] named after British astronomer Sir James Jeans, who first described this process of atmospheric loss. [2] In a quantity of gas, the average velocity of any one molecule is measured by the gas's temperature, but the velocities of individual molecules change as they collide with one another, gaining and losing kinetic energy.
Other air molecules (e.g. oxygen, nitrogen) have lower mobilities and thus diffuse more slowly through the balloon wall. There is a concentration gradient in the balloon wall, because the balloon was initially filled with helium, and thus there is plenty of helium on the inside, but there is relatively little helium on the outside (helium is ...
A super pressure balloon in flight Flight profile of super-pressure balloons versus zero-pressure balloons. A superpressure balloon (SPB) is a style of aerostatic balloon where the volume of the balloon is kept relatively constant in the face of changes in ambient pressure outside the balloon, and the temperature of the contained lifting gas.
Established in the 1920s for what was then a burgeoning blimp industry, the Federal Helium Reserve quickly became the go-to for scores of scientists and private companies when it came to sourcing ...