Good Morning Hyderabad: No UFO, white object floating in sky is TIFR's atmospheric balloon

Hyderabad: "Any information on this bright spark kind appearance in the early morning sky?" asked a city resident sharing a photo from Indira Park. He was curious to know more about the white object that he spotted in the sky on Wednesday morning.

People started making wild guesses about what the white object could be. Someone said it was a meteor and another person said it was a plane with white lights passing through the clouds.

Soon, the city residents came to know that it was a research balloon released for atmospheric studies by the National Balloon Facility.

National Balloon Facility, also known as the TIFR Balloon Facility, is a stratospheric-balloon launch base under the joint management of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Indian Space Research Organisation. This institute is located in Hyderabad near Electronics Corporation of India Limited.

"On December 7 at approximately 7:30 am, an odd object was spotted in the sky. The object could be seen if one faced the east direction and looked up. This is a research balloon put out by an organization in Hyderabad called National Balloon Facility. These balloons are released for atmospheric studies. This is a helium balloon that carries nearly 1000 kilos of scientific instruments," said N Raghunandan, Director of the Planetary Society of India.

Previously, TIFR said that the balloons are made of thin (Polyethylene) plastic films, ranging in diameter from 50 meters to 85 meters and will be launched between 6 am and 8 pm. They plan to put out ten such balloon flights in a period of five months from 1 November 2022 to 30 April 2023.

"The balloons, which carry up scientific instruments for research at high altitudes, are expected to reach heights between 30 km and 42 km depending upon the experiments being undertaken. The instruments will be kept at these heights for periods ranging from a few to 10 hours and then they will be released from the balloon. After release, the instruments will come down to the ground on large colored parachutes," TIFR said in a statement.

"During ascent and at the ceiling, the balloons will drift in the prevailing winds and the instruments may, therefore, land at points as distant as about 200 to 350 km from Hyderabad. The balloon drifts will be on the Visakhapatnam-Hyderabad-Sholapur line, in the areas of Andhra Pradesh, North Karnataka, and Maharashtra States."

B Suneel Kumar, Scientist-in-charge at TIFR said that they are extremely sensitive and valuable. "Scientific data will be lost if it is tampered with. There may be high voltages on some of the instruments, which will be dangerous, but only if the instruments are opened up. Otherwise, they are safe and harmless," he added.

The research balloon fell down at Marpalli in Vikarabad on Wednesday evening.

TIFR has requested the public not to remove these balloons from their place of landing and to telephone or send a telegram to the address which will be given.