Sao Paulo, Apr 6 (IANS/EFE): A team of Brazilian scientists plan to use a pair of stratospheric balloons to study the energy produced by explosions on the Sun, the head of the project said.
The specially equipped balloons have to reach the stratosphere - 40 km above the Earth's surface - because the frequencies the researchers want to study cannot penetrate the atmosphere, Pierre Kauffmann told EFE.
Balloons represent a less costly alternative to satellites, according to Kauffmann, a scientist with the Center for Radioastronomy and Astrophysics at Sao Paulo's Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie.
The first balloon flight, tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2014, will pass over Russia.