THESE incredible images of the earth from the edge of space were captured by a group of Oxfordshire teenagers using nothing more than a balloon.

A team of 12 sixth form physicists at Abingdon School built the high-altitude balloon, attached two GoPro cameras and other scientific instruments then launched it into space.

With its tiny Lego captain at the helm, it reached a dizzying 29,410ft, measured the temperature (-39.6 degrees) and the humidity, then plummeted back down to earth just 12km from the school near Standlake.

The pupils were given expert guidance on their project by space scientist Samantha Graham of European Astrotech, but they did the hard work themselves.

One of the boys, Hugh Franklin, 16, said: “It was an enormous learning curve, from frustrations when some designs didn’t work to the excitement of the launch and all the hard work coming together. But overall it’s been well worth it.”

Staff and pupils gathered to watch the lower sixth students launch their balloon, christened The Griffen, at 10.30am on Thursday, April 23.

The boys tracked the balloon’s progress using GPS and were ready in a minibus to collect it from the landing site just two-and-a-half hours later.

Along with two GoPro cameras to film the whole journey, their balloon was equipped with instruments to measure humidity and air pressure.

The pupils designed experiments to study the change the blueness of the sky due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering. Sensors collecting this information were connected to a tiny Raspberry Pi computer so, along with video footage from two GoPros, there was a lot of data to analyse.

Abingdon School spokeswoman Jane Warne said: “One of the aims of the project was to inspire and educate pupils about space science and technology and over the 12 weeks the boys had to get to grips with the telemetry software, perform calculations to determine the amount of hydrogen gas required to lift the payload to the required height and also to design and build a stable payload. A wide spectrum of scientific disciplines – atmospherics, chemistry, physics and engineering – were explored.”

The boys taking part in the project were James Anderson-Besant, Yan Yang Chen, Man Tung Chow, Churk Yean Chung, Hugh Franklin, Jonty de la Harpe, Seb Hickman, Bryan Kwan, Sanhanat Sivapiromrat, Gabriel Suen, Wilfred Wong and Rattanan Wonghirundacha.