What happens to a heliumballoon once it has floated out of sight into the sky?Does the string just fall?

Question

How high does the balloon pop? does it go into space? has it ever been known for string to just fall from the sky onto someones head?

Answer 1

it goes to balloon heaven where the air is made of helium and no ones voices break and stay high!!!

Answer 2

The higher in the atmosphere you go, the less dense the air is. There would be a point where the density of the surrounding air is the same as the density of the balloon, and it does not go any higher.

If you have ever kept a helium balloon for several days, you will remember that it looses it's boyuancy after only a day or so. That's because the Helium molecules are so small they can find their way out of the tiny holes in the rubber of the balloon. When the balloon is in low outside pressure environment (like higher in the atmosphere) the rate of leakage increases.
After a while, the amount of helium in the balloon is not enough to keep it up and it descends. Depending on weather patterns, the balloon may end up hundreds of km away from the point of origin. I was at a party in Western Swizterland (Baselland) where they had addresses written on the strings to about 50 balloons. They released them in the air at a point of the event. About a week later they got a call from someone who found a balloon 300-400km to the East in Austria!

Answer 3

The balloon will not pop, nor will it go into space. The balloon will rise until the air is too thin for it to rise any more (Until it is no longer lighter than the air around it. This is why it can't go into space, it can't be lighter than a vacuum), however the difference in pressure will not pop the balloon. Over time, the balloon will start losing it's helium (since the material is not perfect) and it will float back down. Of course, it can very possibly be hit many a great number of things while in the air.

Answer 4

It's impossible for the balloon to enter space, seeing as it's too cold, there's too much pressure, and it just wouldn't make it out of the atmosphere without popping, or deflating [in more scientific terms.] The balloon probably wouldn't even make it past the troposphere [first layer of the atmosphere.] But then again, it depends on what kind of a balloon you're using. A weather balloon usually makes it to the top of the stratosphere, or the second layer, but they're also made out of a much stronger material than regular balloons, and are made to withstand the temperature, pressure, and what not.

Answer 5

A He balloon floats on air just like a cork floats on water. Why...because of buoyancy force. Thus, if we release the cork from beneath the water's surface, it'll pop up to the surface.

Similarly, the balloon, submerged in air will float upward until it reaches a surface of sorts in the atmosphere. That virtual "surface" is where the balloon, now somewhat expanded in volume, displaces the same weight of air that it (gas and rubber) weighs.

It ceases to rise at that altitude, where the imaginary surface is, because its buoyancy just equals its weight and the net forces on it are zero. Thus, there are no forces to keep it moving upward (in the absence of shear wind up and down drafts).

Understand all this happens so long as the balloon remains intact. Once it pops, which it will eventually, it simply falls, string and all, to the ground.

There are all kinds of thing the balloon will encounter as it gains altitude that can make it pop. First, it gets incredibly cold at higher altitudes. Rubber and such tend to get quite brittle when cold. Thus, the slight disturbance, like a hail stone, can shatter the balloon (pop).

Second, at the surface, where the balloon stops moving upward, the balloon could be hyperextended. That is, it could become so big that the rubber simply tears (pop).

Third, if our hapless balloon survives the cold and over extension, the rubber will simply wear out from exposure to the elements: sunlight, cosmic rays, wind, and so on. Once again pop.

Finally, as the interior pressures have met the lower exterior pressures of the atmosphere when the balloon is on the imaginary surface, the He might simply leak out. The material the balloon is typically made from is relatively imporous when aided by the atmosphere's pressure pushing inward on the balloon's surface, but it becomes more and more porous as the atmospheric pressure diminishes with altitude. No pop in this case, but as the He is lost, it begins to sink; finally coming to rest on Earth's surface.

Bottom line, balloons are not up there indefinitely. They all eventually come back to Earth; whole or in ripped shreds. [See source.]

While the accounts of balloon string falling on someone's head are unclear, there are frequent accounts of weather baloons and ceremonial balloons (like for birthday parties) falling in people's yards. Sometimes the balloons, carried by strong winds aloft, land hundreds of miles away from where they were launched into the sky.

Answer 6

Eventually, a helium balloon will float so high the the air pressure is too low for the balloon and it will pop. Unfortunately this usually happens after the balloon floats out over the ocean and kills a lot of marine life who mistake the balloon for a meal.

Answer 7

FUNNY QUESTION, im not sure, it only floats up cos its lighter than air but air gets thinner the higher you go so it must have a ceiling. It couldnt go into space because of gravity, the gas eventually will leak out out and it will fall to earth maybe on some ones head

Answer 8

As the helium balloom rises ,, it starts to get bigger in size as the outside pressure is lesser than inside,, after a while it just pops ,, if it doesnt pop it will just keep floating untill something hits it ..

once it pops the rubber in the baloon and the thread will just fall

Answer 9

Good Question,
Often see them just floating by.
I tend to think that they are attracted by some magnetic force to land in my back garden, coz I always seem to get 2 or 3 a year.

Answer 10

How sad is this question...you need to get out more!..Maybe follow a balloon!