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A seventh-grade girl sent a Hello Kitty doll on a trip to the stratosphere for a school assignment.
Propelled by a weather balloon, Hello Kitty took a ride almost 18 miles above the surface of the earth stationed in a rocket. A video captured the ride from the time of the rocket launch until its landing. The video shows the moment when the weather balloon swells to 56 times its original size and breaks at 93,625 feet above the earth's surface. The rocket was discovered 47 miles away a few days later up in a tree.
13-year-old Lauren Rojas conducted the project in order to study the effects of altitude on air pressure and temperature for her class at Cornerstone Christian School in Antioch, California. She told the New York Daily News the entire project took a couple weeks to put together.
And why the Hello Kitty doll? She told the Daily News, ""I liked her ever since I was 6 years old. My love for Hello Kitty has never gone away and I thought it would be really fun to add a toy inside the rocket."