A stadium-sized pressure balloon launched by NASA in New Zealand began collecting data in near space on Wednesday, beginning a 100-day planned journey after several launch attempts were thwarted by storms and cyclones.
The balloon, designed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to detect ultra-high energy cosmic particles from beyond the galaxy as they penetrate the earth's atmosphere, is expected to circle the planet two or three times.
"The origin of these particles is a great mystery that we'd like to solve. Do they come from massive black holes at the centre of galaxies? Tiny, fast-spinning stars? Or somewhere else?" Angela Olinto, a University of Chicago professor and lead investigator on the project, said in a statement.
The balloon's monitoring was only the start of a long quest which would next involve a space mission currently being designed by NASA, she added.
The balloon, launched on Tuesday in Wanaka, a scenic spot on New Zealand's South Island, will collect data from 34km above Earth.
New Zealand was also the base for NASA's scientific balloon programme in 2015 and 2016.
