At the age of 94, the still-active heliophysicist Eugene Parker passed away. The Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018, was named after him, and I think everyone is grateful that he was able to see it reach out and touch the Sun. That namesake probe has gathered data that showed that Parker’s work in the 1950s built an accurate theoretical foundation for our understanding of the Sun.

While working at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, Parker developed theoretical models – in a day before computers – that introduced supersonic solar winds and predicted the spiral shape of the Sun’s magnetic field in the outer solar system. This work also helped explain how the Sun rotates at different rates at different latitudes.

In the late 1980s, at an age when many would be retiring, he instead worked to solve the solar corona heating problem. For reasons that aren’t fully understood, the Sun’s outer atmosphere is far hotter than predicted. Parker postulated that small nanoflares on the Sun can take place where magnetic fields reconnect, and these flares release energy that heats the corona.

In 2017, when Parker was 90 years old, NASA announced he would become the first living person to have a spacecraft named after him. I think it is safe to say everyone in the space community is grateful he was able to see the mission show so many of his theories are correct.

Rest in science, Eugene Parker.

More Information

NASA press release

We Booped the Sun (The Atlantic)