School Children send rubber chicken in atmosphere

Bishop, California: Using a helium balloon, students sent the rubber fowl, named Camilla, 120,000 ft into the sky where she was exposed to high-energy solar protons. The experiment was done to test radiation levels from last month's solar storm.

On the outside of her knitted space suit, the chicken wore radiation badges to calculate the radiation levels she was exposed to.

She was launched into the sky twice - once on March 3 before the solar storm and again on March 10 while the storm was in full swing. This gave the students a basis for comparison. After two and a half hours in the sky, the balloon popped, as planned, and Camilla parachuted safely back to Earth.

The Bishop Union High School students' experiment was part of their astrobiology project. Later this year they hope to launch a species of microbes to find out if they can live at the edge of space.