This U.S.-Mexico award will help to support joint research between groups headed by Prof. Nebil Misconi of the Florida Institute of Technology and Prof. Alfonso Serrano of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, (UNAM) in Mexico. The purpose of the collaboration is to pursue studies concerning the environment around the sun. Among the objectives of the research, the investigators intend to obtain information on the brightness of the solar corona and verify whether the sun has dust rings or a dust shell around it. The investigators' experiment will include the launching of a Viper-Class Sounding Rocket from the South Atlantic Ocean to observe the forthcoming (June 30, 1992) total solar eclipse. This is one of the longest duration total eclipses of the sun in this century. The rocket will carry scientific instruments built by the U.S. PI with various components from Mexico. Data from the eclipse will be transmitted to the ground and recorded on a memory device for recovery by the U.S. Navy. The experiment will obtain specific information on the dynamics of the dust particles orbiting the sun and the interaction of the dust with the solar wind. This information will help to increase our understanding of the environment around the sun and other stars.
