A NASA-style spaceball has been stolen from a storage yard.

The gyroscope, which is used to entertain crowds at events across Sussex, had only recently been featured in The Argus as part of Brighton Science Festival.

Now police are searching for the nine-foot perspex structure after it was stolen from a council storage yard in Hove Park.

The gyroscope, which weighs 900kg, is believed to be worth about £5,000.

It is designed to recreate the feeling of weightlessness and the pressure of gravity experienced by astronauts as they go into space.

The machine is used by NASA to train and test recruits.

Owner Justin Summers, who is now having to cancel a string of bookings to take the gyroscope to summer events, believes it was towed away from its Hove Park lock-up.

He said there are only five or six similar machines in the country, so the culprits will find it difficult not to be spotted.

And he also believes somebody must have seen the gyroscope being towed away.

He said: "It is a serious piece of kit - but who would nick it, and why?

"My mobile telephone number is on both sides and the back of the trailer, unless the numbers have been removed.

"It never occurred to me or anybody else that somebody would steal it."

The gyroscope is thought to have been stolen between 5pm on Thursday March 6 and 7am on Friday March 7.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sussex Police on 0845 6070999 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.