Weather balloon?
September 27, 2013 11:06 AM   Subscribe

What happens to the balloon part of a weather balloon?

So, when a weather balloon bursts, what happens to the balloon parts? Do they fall to earth or do they say in the upper atmosphere? We are not interested in the payload, just the balloon. Is there an weather balloon environmental problem with all the balloons?
posted by fifilaru to Science & Nature (7 answers total)
 
Gravity would cause the balloon parts to fall. Latex balloons will biodegrade. Neoprene balloons will not.

I am not aware of burst weather balloons as being a hot environmental issue.
posted by Tanizaki at 11:15 AM on September 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


The balloon pops, and remnants fall to earth due to gravity. Weather balloons tend to be made of biodegradable latex which is extracted from rubber trees.
posted by oceanjesse at 11:30 AM on September 27, 2013


Depending on size, payload and what not, they either get to a point where the pop due to the pressure differential or they loose enough helium to come back down. The white stuff you see at 1:17 is former balloon bits. There's a reason you put a small parachute on the instrument package.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:40 AM on September 27, 2013


On this one you can see some balloon bits for a frame or three at about 0:52.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:42 AM on September 27, 2013


Here is a still of a high-altitude balloon burst.
posted by jamjam at 12:08 PM on September 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


Both radio sondes I found had deflated balloons attached. I turned in the recorder after I threw away the balloon.
posted by BlueHorse at 2:35 PM on September 27, 2013


In an effort to replicate a very expensive burial-in-space process without cheapening the act of burial in general, the BBC show "James May's Man Lab" launched two balloons simultaneously, each containing the cremains of viewer's pet: a cat and a budgie. In addition to carrying a photo of the beloved pet on an arm in front of the camera, which is the traditional film subject in these sorts of launches, they had a camera facing each balloon!

See here at the 3:50 mark (this YTL gives a 10 second lead) of the flight video which shows the two balloons bursting, and then replayed in slow motion because slow motion is great. Budgie #35's balloon bursts first, and about a minute later at the end of the song, Tommy the Cat's balloon is also shown bursting in slow-mo. On the slow-mo bits, watch for the puff of gray dust-- the cremains of the critters were inside the balloons.

Right now, by the way, this sort of kit would cost about $1000, for cameras and all. Far cheaper if you don't need to recover anything, so if you happen to be doing some end-of-life planning...
posted by Sunburnt at 7:28 PM on September 27, 2013 [1 favorite]


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