NASA is naming its upcoming mission to “touch the Sun” after Eugene Parker, a prominent astrophysicist who discovered the existence of solar wind — the charged particles that are constantly streaming from our star. The mission, originally named Solar Probe Plus, will now be called the Parker Solar Probe. It’s the first time NASA has named one of its missions after a scientist who is still alive. Parker discovered solar wind in the 1950s and is about to celebrate his 90th birthday.
The Parker Solar Probe is NASA’s plan to send a spacecraft closer to our Sun than ever before. The probe, which is being developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, is supposed to launch on top of a Delta IV Heavy rocket in either July or August of...
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