Only two days after the launch of its most ambitious scientific balloon, NASA has brought the instrument down due to a leak, Nature reported. <\/p>\n
NASA launched the scientific balloon carrying the Compton Spectrometer and Imager on Dec. 28 with plans to keep it afloat for 100 days or more, a feat that would have doubled the current record for a scientific balloon flight. But a leak in the 532,000-cubic-meter balloon prompted the agency to bring it down on Antarctic ice just before the new year. Researchers from Antarctica\u2019s McMurdo Station will collect the instrument. <\/p>\n
The COSI telescope is designed to observe high-energy photons and determine their origins. Data from the instrument could help discover black holes, pulsars and other cosmic objects.<\/p>\n
Top image:\u00a0The balloon ascends through the Antarctic sky. (COSI collaboration \/ NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Only two days after the launch of its most ambitious scientific balloon, NASA has brought the instrument down due to a leak, Nature reported. NASA launched the scientific balloon carrying the Compton Spectrometer and Imager on Dec. 28 with plans to keep it afloat for 100 days or more, a feat that would have doubled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":20555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,7],"tags":[345,146,103,131],"class_list":["post-20558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-atmosphere","category-news","tag-earth-atmosphere","tag-nasa","tag-news-2","tag-solar-system"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\n