Student balloons capture Earth images from 35 kilometres above Cobar

A group of year 10 STEM students from the Hunter School of Performing Arts in Newcastle successfully launched two homemade high-altitude weather balloons from Cobar, in western New South Wales. The ambitious project aimed to gather data from the Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 35 kilometers.

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The reason we came all the way out to Cobar is we want to prevent [the balloons] from landing in the ocean or trees. It made it easier to retrieve.

Twenty-one engineering students participated in the launch. They chose Cobar to minimize the risk of the balloons landing in the ocean or dense bushland, making retrieval easier. The balloons, constructed from degradable latex and weighing three kilograms each, carried trackers and equipment to record temperature, speed, location, humidity, and pressure. Some students also included personal keepsakes for the journey.

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I was riding my bike over to my dad and we found the box.

While one balloon's string broke early and landed north of Tottenham, the second successfully reached its target altitude and landed approximately 250 kilometers away on a citrus farm in Narromine. Five-year-old Ezra Roberts, who lives on the farm, assisted in the balloon's recovery. The students raised $15,000 to fund the project, which builds on a previous, less successful launch in 2024. Teacher Ben Moore expressed pride in the students' engagement and the project's success.

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If we look at the website, we can see the altitude, longitude and where to find it on the map.