A NASA balloon that crashed to the ground in remote Queensland, Australia last week has been discovered in remote Queensland, Australia.

Cattle station workers discovered the broke-up super pressure balloon in a field, according to ABC News. The flight was terminated on April 27 after controllers detected a leak developing in the balloon. It had been 32 days since the balloon launched from Wanaka Airport, New Zealand.

Marianne McCarthy, from Bulloo Downs station near Thargomindah, was one of a group of workers who went looking for the balloon after hearing it had landed nearby. She said the group came across a big white box, cameras, an orange-and-white parachute-type object, material and cables in the middle of nowhere.

"I thought maybe the balloon disintegrated, and the orange and white thing we found, maybe that was the material to bring it down — I am not sure — but there is a lot of plastic lying around," McCarthy ABC News. "We saw the white box — we didn't even see the parachute or the balloon part of it until we were right up on it."

Cattle station workers find NASA super balloon near Thargomindah in remote outback Queensland http://t.co/OIIemhS7x7 pic.twitter.com/2ox5Y8JqUQ — ABC News Queensland (@abcnews_qld) May 6, 2015

"It was pretty unique — it had the station buzzing anyway for a few hours, trying to find this big mystery balloon, and I had visions driving over a sand hill and seeing something silver and the size of Suncorp stadium laying out on the flat," she said.

The balloon is pumpkin shaped and made from 22 acres of material, making it as large as a football stadium when inflated, NASA said in a statement. It can hold weight of 3,600 kilograms.

The path of the balloon's journey from New Zealand to Australia. Image: NASA

Although the balloon crashed, NASA has described the flight as "its most rigorous test to date." Debbie Fairbrother, NASA’s Balloon Program Office Chief and Principal Investigator, said this balloon accomplished what no other balloon of this weight-lift range had done, by maintaining a constant float altitude for long durations in the harsh conditions of Earth's stratosphere.

"While we hoped for more days at float, we exceeded our pre-established minimum success criteria of 10 days by threefold in the balloon’s most demanding test yet," Fairbrother said. The balloon maintained a constant float altitude of 33 kilometres (110,000 feet) for more than 30 days of flight through the day and night cycle.

NASA is testing balloons of this nature flying at stable altitudes for a long duration, in the hope they will play an important role in low-cost access to space-like environments for astrophysics, heliophysics and atmospheric research.