Students lift the lid on Ballymaloe space oddity

A humble jar of Ballymaloe Country Relish has boldly gone where no relish has gone before — right to the edge of space.

Around the time North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was facing public humiliation after the failure of a long-range rocket launch, four Irish students were already on their way to YouTube stardom after posting footage of their successful space launch from Mallow, north Cork.

They fixed the jar to a rig, attached a GoPro HD video camera, and released it into space under a two-metre helium balloon. The contraption reached an altitude of 96,500 ft — almost 30km — where temperatures of -55C froze the jar’s contents and caused the camera equipment to fail.