Move over, Mickey Mantle. The students of Earth to Sky Calculus have just set a new home run record.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Mantle hit a 565 foot blast on April 17, 1953. Eclipsing that mark, a Dodger ball launched by the students on March 17, 2018, sailed 123 kilometers! The baseball traveled to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray balloon, alongside X-ray and gamma-ray sensors that the students use to study atmospheric radiation. After the balloon exploded over the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California, the payload parachuted back to Earth, landing in the desert near Gemfield, NV, more than 123 km from the launch site. At the apex of the flight, the baseball was 35.4 km above the ground, experiencing temperatures as low as -62 C and air pressures only 0.2% of sea level. Now that's a homer!

The payload carried commemorative baseballs for the following teams: Dodgers, Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Padres, and Giants. During checkout, enter your preferred team in the COMMENTS section. We will send you the corresponding baseball. If your home team is not on the list, let us know and we will fly it for you on an upcoming flight.

Each baseball comes with a greeting card showing the ball in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere.