TL;DR
- Samsung sent four Galaxy S24 Ultras to the edge of the stratosphere.
- The phones took over 150 fantastic photos of Earth, also showing the darkness of space.
PetaPixel reports that Samsung attached Galaxy S24 Ultra phones to four stratospheric balloons and sent them aloft. These balloons were launched from the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, Los Vegas, and the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The balloons eventually reached a height of over 120,000 feet or ~36 kilometers. That means it didn’t reach space, which is commonly defined as starting from ~100 kilometers. However, it’s still a higher altitude than the service ceiling of an SR71 BlackBird spyplane (85,000 feet).
The hydrogen in these balloons was eventually vented, and parachutes popped open to allow the phones to return to Earth unscathed. So what did these phones capture?
Samsung’s phones took over 150 pictures during their flights, using a mix of their ultrawide, 1x, 3x, and 5x cameras. The photos speak for themselves, as you can see Earth’s curvature and the blackness of space. This is in addition to the spectacular landscapes, mountain ranges, and other geographical features.
To be fair, I’m sure you’d get fantastic photos from this altitude with many other great flagship phones (e.g. Pixel 8 Pro, OPPO Find X7 Ultra). But it’s still really cool to see a company taking a different approach to demonstrating their phone’s photographic prowess.
Want to see more nifty photos taken as part of this project? You can check out the PetaPixel article for more snaps and all the details.
