I LOST YOU TO THE SOLAR WIND
In 2017, NASA named a spacecraft in honour of a living person for the first time when designating a probe researching the Sun the “Parker Solar Probe”. Its namesake, Eugene Parker, attended its 2018 launch and reshaped perception of how the Sun operates through his pioneering research, doing more to change how we see the fiery sphere than anyone since whoever invented sunglasses. Realising in high school that physics was his calling, he went on to propose the theory of solar wind in the mid-50s, meaning the Sun’s surface constantly releases a stream of charged particles throughout the Solar System. This rebelled against the then-scientific consensus which considered the space between the Sun and planets to be entirely vacuum. His attempt in 1958 to publish a paper about his theory was scoffed away by the referees, though it was ultimately approved by future Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who disagreed with the theory but respected that the calculations were mathematically sound. Parker was vindicated several years later when the Mariner 2 mission to Venus observed solar wind.
The Sun was Parker’s preeminent niche, with his research on its magnet fields held in similar regard to that of solar wind, though his interests covered other space-related sciences. Several concepts and mathematical models carry his name, and his humble demeanour and skill for concisely explaining tough concepts further contributed to his esteemed spot in heliophysics. Following his death at 94, his legacy lives on in part through the Parker Solar Probe, which contains a memory card that includes several photos of Parker as well as a copy of his now-venerated paper some 60+ years after it struggled to be published. A trio of teams are lightened up by Parker eclipsing – Dead And Dusted, Dr Shipman’s waiting room, and spacey theme Decaying Orbit-uaries (who’s the chapess that runs that again?).
Eugene Parker
10 June 1927 – 15 March 2022, aged 94
3 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 5 POINTS)