NASA's GUSTO Balloon Mission: Mapping the Space Between Stars in the Milky Way

NASA is launching the GUSTO experiment, a balloon-borne telescope, to scan the space between stars in the Milky Way and listen for cosmic ingredients. GUSTO will create a 3D map of a region of the galaxy using high-frequency radio waves, searching for signals of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen in the interstellar medium. By studying this space, scientists hope to understand how stars and planets form and how galaxies evolve. The balloon will float over Antarctica for at least 55 days, allowing GUSTO to observe without interference from water vapor in Earth's atmosphere.