IUE study of the very local interstellar medium

The IUE and Copernicus results for the very local interstellar medium are compared. Despite its lower resolution, IUE produces results of comparable quality, giving important confirmation of Copernicus results on the density, temperature, turbulence, and deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in the region within 10 pc of the Sun. The stars observed are in a very low-density quarter of the galaxy: multicomponent structure seen in other directions may not be present in the direction of most of the observed stars. The exceedingly low densities observed in certain directions encourages the idea that EUV studies of certain normal stars may be possible.