S
CI-TECH & ENGINEERINGFASTEST SPEED IN FREEFALL
Felix Baumgartner (AUT) fell to Earth at 1,357.6 km/h
(843.6 mph) during the death-defying Red Bull Stratos
mission above New Mexico, USA, on 14 Oct 2012.
The skydive, from a balloon floating at the edge of space,
made Baumgartner the first human to break the sound
barrier in freefall. His feat broke eight world records that
had endured for 52 years, including Joe Kittinger’s highest
freefall parachute jump, set on 16 Aug 1960 (see above
left). That record, and the record for highest manned
balloon flight, is now held by Alan Eustace (see right).HIGHEST ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA
Of all the phenomena visible in our skies, the very highest are the aurorae,
also known as the Northern and Southern Lights (Aurora Borealis and
Aurora Australis, respectively). Often visible at night from low and high
latitudes, these beautiful coloured, shimmering lights are the result of
charged particles from the Sun interacting with the upper atmosphere.
The lowest aurorae occur at altitudes of around 100 km (62 mi), while
the highest extend up to around 400 km (248 mi).HIGHEST MANNED
BALLOON FLIGHT
On 24 Oct 2014, Alan
Eustace (USA) performed
a stratospheric skydive
from 41,419 m (135,889 ft)
above New Mexico, USA.
It took Eustace 2 hr to
ascend, in a pressure suit
that was tethered directly
beneath a balloon – rather
than inside a capsule
(as employed in 2012 by
Felix Baumgartner) or a
gondola. By contrast, it
took just 15 min for him to
fall to Earth again. Eustace
was a senior executive at
Google at the time of his
jump, which was carried
out in secret without
any publicity.FIRST VINYL RECORD PLAYED IN THE STRATOSPHERE
Third Man Records (USA) used the Icarus Craft, a turntable
designed by Kevin Carrico, to play a vinyl copy of A Glorious
Dawn at an altitude of 2,878 m (9,442 ft) on 2 Jul 2016. The
record was the 3-millionth pressing by the label, which was
co-founded by musician Jack White (USA). It features the
voices of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, arranged to music
by John Boswell as part of the Symphony of Science project.
On 23 Apr 2015, Matt Kingsnorth and Phil St Pier (both UK)
achieved the highest model X-Wing launched by balloon.
It rose to a height of around 36,190 m (118,733 ft).
The highest altitude for a Raspberry Pi-powered
teddy bear (on a Raspberry Pi-powered weather balloon)
is just over 41 km (25.48 mi), by Babbage the Bear on 24 Aug
- The Raspberry Pi Foundation and Dave Akerman (both
UK) organized the event.
FIRST STRATOSPHERIC SKYDIVE
On 16 Nov 1959, as part of Project Excelsior, US pilot Joe
Kittinger skydived from a purpose-built helium balloon that
had risen to a height of 76,400 ft (23,287 m). This was the
first of a series of three jumps performed by Kittinger from
an open gondola attached to the balloon. The image above
shows his third jump, on 16 Aug 1960, when he set the then
record for the highest freefall parachute jump.
FASTEST
METEOR SHOWER
The Leonids occur
from 15 to 20 Nov each
year. They enter Earth’s
atmosphere at around
71 km/sec (44 mi/sec)
and begin to glow at an
altitude of around 155 km
(96 mi). Their high speed
results from the fact that
the motion of the parent
meteoroid stream, from
comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle,
is almost directly opposite
to the orbital motion of
Earth around the Sun. This
results in an almost head-
on impact between the
tiny particles and Earth.
Baumgartner’s
leap from the
stratosphere attracted
more than 8 million
concurrent views
on YouTube.