A video posted on YouTube shows the amazing voyage of a Lego man sent into space on a homemade spacecraft by two Toronto students.
Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, used a weather balloon ordered online and a makeshift Styrofoam spacecraft to send the plastic astronaut 15 miles into the stratosphere, reports said.
Their high school principal Lecourgos Papathanasakis confirmed the "amazing voyage" but neither of the teens was immediately available for comment.
The accelerated video clip shows highlights of the Lego man during his 97-minute odyssey.
Ultimately, he is seen holding a Canadian flag with the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space in the background.
Canadian media said the pair had fitted a box tethered to the balloon with four cameras and a cellphone enabled with a GPS (global positioning system) device to capture the journey.
They then added a home-made nylon parachute, using Asad's mother's sewing machine, so the Lego man would return to Earth safely.
The balloon was filled with helium purchased from a party supply store.
The whole enterprise cost less than £320.
The duo then consulted a website to calculate the estimated landing spot of the weather balloon based on launch coordinates, prevailing winds and other data before launching it from a soccer pitch in nearby Newmarket, Ontario.
At four miles in altitude, the balloon travelled out of cell phone range and the GPS signal also cut out, so they went home and waited until Ho's iPad beeped.
The Lego man had called home. It had re-entered the atmosphere, picked up the cell signal again and touched down in a field 75 miles from the launch point.
Michael Reid, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto, said what Ho and Muhammad were able to achieve is extraordinary.
"There are people that are doing it, but I haven't seen many examples of 17-year-old kids doing it," Reid said. "It's a pretty impressive accomplishment."
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