Take a tour of the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun—IS☉IS, pronounced ee-sis and including the symbol for the Sun in its acronym—on board Parker Solar Probe with Principal Investigator David McComas.
IS☉IS uses two complementary instruments in one combined scientific investigation to measure particles across a wide range of energies By measuring electrons, protons and ions, IS☉IS will understand the particles’ life cycles—where they came from, how they became accelerated and how they move out from the Sun through interplanetary space. The two energetic particle instruments on IS☉IS are called EPI-Lo and EPI-Hi (EPI stands for Energetic Particle Instrument).
IS☉IS is led by Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, and was built largely at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and Caltech, in Pasadena, California, with significant contributions from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland The IS☉IS Science Operations Center is operated at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
The Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun—IS☉IS, pronounced ee-sis and including the symbol for the Sun in its acronym—on board Parker Solar Probe uses two complementary instruments in one combined scientific investigation to measure particles across a wide range of energies. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL