Florida Atlantic Research

At the edge of space, engineering becomes art 🚀✨

Mechanical engineering student Sky Rueff captured the exact moment a research balloon bursts nearly 20 miles above Earth — earning third place in the Art of Science contest.

What started as a mission to study extreme near-space conditions revealed something unexpected: the beauty of systems pushed to their limits.

“Good engineering is an art,” Rueff says—and this image proves it.