Press Release for ICEsat and CHIPS

CHIPS Program site

CHIPS Fact Sheet

CHIPS Media Kit

NASA Explorers Program site

ICESat web page

Caption for Image 1: CHIPS Satellite

The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS) satellite mission is studying the very hot, very low density gas in the vast spaces between the stars in our local astronomical neighborhood. The material between the stars is known as the Interstellar Medium. CHIPS six apertures for observing the Interstellar Medium are located just below the small disk in the center of the forward end. The black rectangles are solar cells. The CHIPS instrument was built at the Space Science Laboratory of the University of California , Berkeley, and the spacecraft bus was built by SpaceDev, Inc. of Poway, Calif. The project is sponsored by the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters, Washington, and the project is managed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., through the NASA Explorers Program. (Photo credit: UCB)

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High Resolution of Image 8 can be found at this link.

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November 26, 2002 - (date of web publication)

	Image 1

In our galaxy alone, there are several hundred billion stars. Nearby stars are easy to see, although most of the stars in the Milky Way are so distant that their combined light appears as a fuzzy band stretching across the sky on a clear night. Equally easy to see is the space between the stars -- but how often do you wonder about this space? Most of us have an idea that these vast spaces are empty, a perfect vacuum. In fact these space are filled with a very thin gas and microscopic grains of dust. The material between the stars is known as the Interstellar Medium, or ISM, and contains important clues about the formation and evolution of galaxies. The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS) satellite will give scientists invaluable information on the origin, physical processes and properties of the hot gas in the nearby interstellar medium. CHIPS is scheduled to launch as a secondary payload to ICESAT aboard a Delta II rocket on January 11, 2003.

	Image 2
	Click on image for animation.

CHIPS IN SPACE - The next three images/animations show the CHIPS satellite as it rockets through space.

The CHIPS satellite will examine the "empty" space between stars called the interstellar medium. This empty space is filled with gas and dust. CHIPS is the first mission to use end-to-end satellite operations via the Internet. Credit:NASA

	Image 3		Image 4
	Click on image for animation.		Click on image for animation.

INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM (ISM) IMAGES - These images of the Interstellar Medium were taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and are used to demonstrate the type of science that CHIPS will study.

	Image 5

Horsehead Nebula - The dark area in the center of the image is a thick cloud of interstellar dust blocking the light. Thinner clouds of interstellar dust may dim the light passing through, without completely blocking it.

	Image 6

Sher 25, NGC 3603 - The upper left center of the image is the evolved clue supergiant called Sher 25. Near the center is a starburst cluster dominated by young, hot stars. Dark clouds at the upper right are so-called Bok globules, which are probably in an earlier stage of star formation. The gold colored clouds are ionized hydrogen gas in the ISM.

	Image 7

	Image 8

Stellar Nursery in Spiral Galaxy M33 - The hydrogen gas in the ISM can form relatively cool clouds that emit light in the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum. -These cool clouds of hydrogen can collapse - it is here, in these dense collapsed clouds known as stellar nurseries, that new stars are born.

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