HONG KONG: A massive NASA scientific ballooon which was brought down in Australia last week following a leak has been found near a remote cattle station.
The balloon was the size of a football stadium when fully inflated and is made from around 22 acres of material, weighing four tons.
It completed a near-circumnavigation of Antarctica after departing from New Zealand heading east, but it arrived in Australia after developing a leak.
NASA staff decided to bring it down in the remote outback for safety reasons, and it has now been tracked down by locals with the help of co-ordinates from an astronomer who tracked the balloon.
Marianne McCarthy told local media she found a “big white box” with “bits and pieces hanging off it”, plus the balloon’s extensive material.
A six-person team from NASA is heading to Brisbane to collect trucks to drive to Adelaide, where a larger team will head to the cattle station 690 miles away to retrieve the balloon.
NASA spokeswoman Debbie Fairbrother said: “They are working to get the heavy truck that we need to carry out the payload, and the balloon and the parachute.
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