Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun or IS☉IS, is an instrument aboard the ''

Parker Solar Probe The Parker Solar Probe (PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 to make observations of the Stellar corona, Sun's outer corona. It used repeated Gravity assist, gravity assists from ...

'', a space probe designed to study the Sun. IS☉IS is focused on measuring energetic particles from the Sun, including

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

s, and

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

s. The parent spacecraft was launched in early August 2018, and with multiple flybys of Venus will study the

heliosphere The heliosphere is the magnetosphere, astrosphere, and outermost atmospheric layer of the Sun. It takes the shape of a vast, tailed bubble-like region of space. In plasma physics terms, it is the cavity formed by the Sun in the surrounding ...

of the Sun from less than 4 million kilometers or less than 9 solar radii. IS☉IS consists of two detectors, EPI-Lo and EPI-Hi, corresponding to detection of relatively lower and higher energy particles. EPI-Lo is designed to detect from about 20 k eV per nucleon up to 15 MeV ( mega

electronvolt In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an Voltage, electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum ...

s) total energy, and for electrons from about 25 keV up to 1000 keV. EPI-Hi is designed to measure charged particles from about 1– to 200 MeV per

nucleon In physics and chemistry, a nucleon is either a proton or a neutron, considered in its role as a component of an atomic nucleus. The number of nucleons in a nucleus defines the atom's mass number. Until the 1960s, nucleons were thought to be ele ...

and electrons from about 0.5 to 6 MeV, according to a paper about the device. The shortname includes a symbol for the Sun, a circle with a dot in it: ☉. NASA suggests pronouncing the name as in English.

Operations

By September 2018, IS☉IS had been turned on and first light data was returned.

EPI-Hi

EPI-Hi includes: *High Energy Telescope (1) **HET has 16 detectors stacked *Low Energy Telescopes (2) **LET1 is double ended with 9 stacked detectors **LET2 is single ended with 7 stacked detectors The detectors are solid-state devices.

EPI-Lo

EPI-Lo includes 8 wedge detectors, fed by 80 separate entrances. These entrances correspond to covering a field of view over almost a full hemisphere. EPI-Lo can record differential energy spectra for

Hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

Helium-3 Helium-3 (3He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. (In contrast, the most common isotope, helium-4, has two protons and two neutrons.) Helium-3 and hydrogen-1 are the only stable nuclides with ...

Helium-4 Helium-4 () is a stable isotope of the element helium. It is by far the more abundant of the two naturally occurring isotopes of helium, making up about 99.99986% of the helium on Earth. Its nucleus is identical to an alpha particle, and consi ...

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

Oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

Neon Neon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is the second noble gas in the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with approximately two-thirds the density of ...

Magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 ...

Silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

, and

Iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

References

{{Psp Parker Solar Probe Spacecraft instruments

Operations

EPI-Hi

EPI-Lo

See also

References