Chickens from space (Skill Zone News, 26-Apr-2012)
Chickens from space
Solar activity from sunspot AR1429 unleashed more than fifty solar flares during the first half of March which flooded the earth's upper atmosphere with ionising radiation. Would this radiation pose a threat to space travellers? It was an ideal time to conduct an experiment to find out.
Students at Bishop Union High School in California wanted to know if the high energy solar radiation unleashed by the recent activity of the sun would present a health hazard to astronauts. They decided to measure radiation exposure at the edges of space using the same sort of radiation dosimeters as used in many labs and hospitals. However, lacking both an astronaut and a space shuttle, they improvised. Their launch vehicle consisted of a helium filled balloon carrying a sandwich box fitted with four cameras, two GPS trackers, and a cryogenic thermometer. The astronaut was a rubber chicken named Camilla, wearing a hand-knitted space suit.
Camilla has made two successful launches reaching an impressive height of 120,000 feet. The first mission was on March 3rd, before the solar storm hit, to take baseline figures, and her second trek was on March 10th when the storm was at its peak. Camilla boldly went where no chicken has gone before, and looked into the eye of the fiercest storm for years that this planet has seen.
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