Observational cosmologists at the University of Minnesota successfully launched the E and B Experiment Balloon (EBEX) payload on Thursday, June 11th in Fort Sumner, New Mexico at 8:01 a.m.. EBEX is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to measure the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation.

School of Physics and Astronomy professor Shaul Hanany is the principal investigator of the EBEX collaboration which includes cosmologists from 13 other universities and laboratories.

The flight terminated at 9:40 p.m. Mountain Time in Arizona. The balloon was spotted in Prescott, Arizona and reported as an unidentified bright object around 8:00 p.m. in the evening.

You can see a video of the launch and read about the daily lives of the EBEX crew at Asad Aboobaker's blog.