Stephen Hawking celebrates his birthday on January 9th. In celebration, we launched a near space in far away Idaho (far away from England, that is).
Stephen Hawking's Birthday Celebration in Near Space
At the altitude our balloon bursts, the air pressure is 98% vacuum. Also, the distance to the horizon is 372 miles. The launch took place on the border of Idaho and Oregon, so the video is showing parts of Nevada, California, Washington, and Utah along with most of Idaho and Oregon.
During the video, you'll see that the party balloons expand because of the reduced air pressure at altitude. As chemistry and physics students will recall, this is a result of Boyle's Law (1660).
Robert Boyle's work influenced Isaac Newton and it turns out, Stephen Hawking and Isaac Newton held the same chair at Trinity College (the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics).
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