Submitted by NEOalquimista in Science

Spaceweather.com and Earth to Sky Calculus joined forces with students and professors from the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de México for the first-ever space weather balloon flight over Mexico. An ear of local red corn went along for the ride. This delicious astrobiology experiment aimed to compare the growth rate and morphology of corn exposed to cosmic rays to that of corn left behind on Earth. The corn traveled to the stratosphere, absorbed a dose of cosmic rays 200x greater than on the ground below, and parachuted back to Earth.

Image of the corn in space

Then something strange happened.

When the recovery team found the payload in the Mexican backcountry, the corn was gone! Footage from the payload's video camera revealed its fate. Shortly after the corn landed, a group of Mexican cowboys drove a herd of cattle and horses right by the payload. The horses were delighted to find the corn. But before they could eat it, a ranch dog darted in and grabbed the corn for himself.

Image from the balloon after landing

Without knowing any of this, the recovery team, which reached the payload after dark, immediately suspected animal involvement in the kidnapping of the corn. Piles of horse poop near the payload were a pungent clue. So they scoured the grass around the payload and, amazingly, found dozens of kernels that had not been swallowed by the hasty culprit. The astrobiology experiment was saved!

Bonus: The balloon over Mexico carried more than corn. It also lofted an array of X-ray, gamma-ray, and neutron sensors to measure cosmic rays in the atmosphere. In the next few days we will share the results of that experiment, showing how atmospheric radiation over Mexico compares to that of the USA.

Source: spaceweather.com

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sudo wrote

Haha! Good to hear they were able to recover some of the corn. That dog is cute.

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alqm wrote

:D I just wonder... could it be hazardous to the animals?

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