Eugene Parker, retired University of Chicago professor and astrophysics pioneer, dies
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Retired University of Chicago professor and astrophysicist Eugene Parker died Tuesday at the age of 94.
The university notes that Parker's contributions to the field of solar physics warranted NASA naming the Parker Solar Probe mission after him.
Parker was known around the world for proposing the concept of solar wind – which many were skeptical about and even ridiculed at first, but which turned out to be correct, the U of C said. Parker went on to be a pioneer in astrophysics – with a focus in particular on magnetic fields in space and the dynamic of plasma, the U of C said.
Parker was born in 1927 in Houghton, Michigan, and received his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University in 1948 and his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1951, the U of C said. He taught at the University of Chicago before accepting his position at the U of C in 1955, the university said.
He remained at the U of C for the rest of his career.
It was 1957 when Parker – then an assistant professor – began studying the temperature of the corona of the sun. The math showed the conditions there should result in aa supersonic particle flow off the surface of the sun, the U of C said.
"The first reviewer on the paper said, 'Well I would suggest that Parker go to the library and read up on the subject before he tries to write a paper about it, because this is utter nonsense,'" Parker told UChicago News.
Parker's colleague, the future Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was not on board with the concept either – but noticed that the math all checked out and published the paper despite the bad reviews, the university said.
Read the paper below:
University of Chicago Professor Eugene Parker's 1958 Paper on Solar Winds by Adam Harrington on Scribd
In 1962, the NASA Mariner II spacecraft flew to Venus and found a stream of particles that lined up with exactly what Parker had determined, the U of C said.
"This flow, called the solar wind, turned out to be incredibly influential on the workings of the solar system, including our lives on Earth," Parker's U of C obit read. "It blankets the planets, protecting us from harmful radiation—but also occasionally disrupting our communications, in the case of solar flares."
Other concepts Parker discovered and studied included the dynamo theory on the origin of magnetic fields, the rapid dissipation of magnetic fields, how magnetized shock waves are structured, and the diffusion of high-energy cosmic rays, the U of C said.
In addition to having a solar probe mission named after him, Parker's name is also on a number of astrophysics concepts. The Parker instability describes galactic magnetic fields, the Parker equation concerns particles moving through plasma, and the Parker limit concerns on the flux of magnetic monopoles, the U of C said.
Parker served two stints as the chairman of the U of C's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and was also chair of the astronomy section of the National Academy of Sciences. He retired from the U of C in 1995, but went on publishing books and articles.
In 2018, the U of C reported, Parker was asked about what advice he would impart to scientists who are just starting out.
"I have never made a significant proposal but what there was a crowd who said, 'Ain't so, can't possibly be,'" Parker was quoted. "If you do something new or innovative, expect trouble. But think critically about it because if you're wrong, you want to be the first one to know that."
