Image Courtesy of Montana State University

Mondays total solar eclipse will provide some much-needed wholesome enjoyment for all of us here in the United States. To make things even sweeter, NASAin collaboration with researchers at Montana State Universitywill be seizing the opportunity to launch some giant balloons during the event.

Scientists arent sending up balloons because theyre super stoked about the eclipse, though they are (probably). These enormous balloons are part of a project aptly named the Eclipse Ballooning Project, and will be used to run several experiments, one of which could help researchers preparing for a mission to Mars.

Out of the total fleet of roughly 75 balloons, over 30 of them will carry small samples of an extremely resilient strain of bacteria called Paenibacillus xerothermodurans over80,000 feet above Earth. The P. xerothermodurans samples will be attached to thin, aluminum coupons and attached to the outside of the balloons. According to the researchers, Earths stratosphere is similar to the surface atmosphere on Mars, so theyll be able to get some idea of how bacteria might behave there.

We have to be extremely careful that we dont bring bacteria or other tiny Earth organisms to other planets, project leader Angela Des Jardins, Director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC), told Gizmodo. While most of these tiny forms of life that exists in abundance around us wont survive the trip through space, its understood that some resilient types could go dormant on the trip and then survive on the surface of the other planet. Therefore, in order to be prepared to keep planets we visit absolutely pristine, its important to understand how bacteria might behave there.

In addition to testing out some hearty bacteria, the balloons will have cameras attached to them in order to capture cloud video. The team hopes this will be useful to scientists looking to understand cloud formation during a solar eclipse. Some balloons will also carry tiny weather stations called radiosondes, which researchers can later use to study how Earths atmosphere responds to an eclipse.

We anticipate having high-quality video and images back from the balloons flights within a day or two, Jardins said. Analysis of the bacteria experiment will be done by scientists at Cornell and it will likely be a month or two before results are ready. Analysis of the atmospheric response to the eclipse (from our special set of weather balloons) will similarly take a month or two.

So if youre watching the eclipse this Monday, dont forget to look up: you might just see a giant ball of bacteria floating in the sky. Just kidding, you wont. Also, dont look up without wearing eclipse glasses or youll go blind.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the balloons would be traveling 80,000 miles above Earth. It is actually 80,000 feet. Our bad! Weve edited the text to reflect the change.

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Why NASA Is Launching Massive Balloons of Bacteria During the Eclipse - Gizmodo