Abstract.We discuss a recent sounding rocket experiment which found charged dust in the Earth's tropical mesosphere. The dust detector was designed to measure small (5000-10000 amu) charged dust particles, most likely of meteoric origin. A 5 km thick layer of positively charged dust was found at an altitude of 90 kin, in the vicinity of an observed sporadic sodium layer and sporadic E layer. The observed dust was positively charged in the bulk of the dust layer, but was negatively charged near the bottom.
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