A scientific balloon mission underway at the South Pole has set the record for longest flight of any NASA heavy-lift, long-duration balloon mission, according to the space agency.
NASA launched the Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) scientific balloon in late December from McMurdo Station in Antarctica in order to map portions of the Milky Way and nearby Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The telescope tethered to the balloon is collecting data that will be used in the making of a 3D map of the Milky Way and LMC dwarf galaxy near it using high-frequency radio waves.
