The lost weather balloon sent in outer space, armed with a GoPro, a Sony camcorder and a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, has been found since Bryan Chan and his colleagues did the experiment two years ago.
The group aims to see what kind of footage they could retrieve once the camera returned to Earth. The weather balloon was set free near the Grand Canyon in June 2013, with the hope that the AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 2 will send a message telling its location once it lands via an installed app, according to Engadget.The problem was, their weather balloon did not return and they did not receive the expected message.
However, the smartphone has been found by a woman who works at AT&T on a barren in Arizona. The lady brought it to AT&T store and identified the SIM card registered to one of Chan’s friends. A week later, Chan and his colleagues received the device and saw the photos and videos collected from space.
Chan is an aerospace systems engineer and his colleagues are eager to take a picture of Earth using the atmosphere as some kind of lens. The group figured out how to mount the cameras to the balloon and attached a phone that would be able to track the device via GPS. The aim was to climb a 100-thousand feet above Earth. The weather balloon was also equipped with a parachute and models that would predict where it would land.
The weather balloon was designed to capture breathtaking aerial views of the Grand Canyon and its surrounding area. The retrieved photos and videos showed the ascent and descent of the device. The camera gradually changes its view, from ground view, to a bird’s view, to a plane’s and to an astronaut’s perspective, Fox News reported. The result was a beautiful glimpse of a huge stretch of Earth from the blackness of space itself.