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Dr. Eugene N. Parker, 1927-2022.

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Dr. Parker was a visionary in heliophysics, the science of the Sun and its interactions with the solar system.

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Well, the star is the primary puzzle in the universe because it’s the one star we can observe in detail 

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and stars are complicated things. 

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You can’t imagine all the strange things that have been discovered in the Sun.

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In the mid-1950s, he developed the theory of solar wind – the constant flow of particles coming from the Sun.

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60 years later, a spacecraft was built to study the solar wind up close.

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It is my great honor, a few days before your 90th birthday, Gene,

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to announce that we’re renaming the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft 

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to be known from now on as the Parker Solar Probe. Congratulations.

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Dr. Parker became the first person to witness the launch of a NASA spacecraft bearing his own name.

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I was very moved by the fact that that spacecraft was going off into the night sky 

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and it’ll never come back.

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When you have a space mission into an unknown place, 

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you find remarkable things that you did not anticipate.

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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe continues its mission today 

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in pursuit of the pioneering questions Dr. Parker first envisaged more than a half century ago.

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In memory of Dr. Eugene N. Parker, 1927-2022.

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