Giant NASA Balloon Crashes, Destroys Telescope

A gigantic NASA balloon designed to carry science instruments to the edge of space crashed during takeoff from Australia’s Alice Springs launch site, destroying a multimillion-dollar telescope.

The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT), owned by University of California at Berkeley, was designed to study the polarization of gamma rays and other astrophysical phenomena. It was serving as a test bed for instruments being developed for the Advanced Compton Telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2015, according to the project’s website.

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