Eugene Parker

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Eugene N. Parker (born 10 June 1927) is a solar astrophysicist who received his BS degree in physics from Michigan State University in 1948 and Ph.D., from Caltech in 1951. He is most famous for developing, in the mid 1950s, the theory of the supersonic solar wind, and for predicting the Parker spiral shape of the solar magnetic field in the outer solar system. In 1987, Parker proposed that the solar corona might be heated by myriad tiny "micro-flares", miniature solar flares that occur all over the surface of the Sun.

In 1967, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. As of early 2005, he was still engaged in active research at the University of Chicago. His daughter and son in law are both faculty members at Michigan State University.

Parker spent four years at the University of Utah and, since 1955, has been at the University of Chicago, where he has held positions in the physics department, the astronomy and astrophysics department, and the Enrico Fermi Institute. He is probably the leading authority on the solar wind and the effects of magnetic fields in the heliosphere. His work has greatly increased understanding of the solar corona, the solar wind, the magnetic fields of both earth and sun, and their complex electromagnetic interactions. He has seen spacecraft go out into the heliosphere and confirm theoretical models he developed before the space age, when observations of comet tails provided nearly all the data available. His books, especially Cosmical Magnetic Fields, have educated generations of investigators. His most recent book includes the effects of magnetic fields of planets, stars, and galaxies on X-ray emissions.

[edit] Honors

Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society (1969)
George Ellery Hale Prize, American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division (1978)
National Medal of Science (1989)
Bruce Medal (1997)
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1992)
Kyoto Prize (2003)
James Clerk Maxwell Prize (2003) of the American Physical Society. Citation: "For seminal contributions in plasma astrophysics, including predicting the solar wind, explaining the solar dynamo, formulating the theory of magnetic reconnection, and the instability which predicts the escape of the magnetic fields from the galaxy."