US Astrophysicist Eugene Parker passed away.

Why in news?

• Recently , American Astrophysicist Eugene Newman Parker (Eugene Parker), who contributed to the solar physics, has passed away at the age of 94 at a retirement community in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America(USA).
• He was born on 10th June 1927 in Houghton, Michigan, USA.

About Eugene Parker:

• Eugene Parker witnessed the launch of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Parker Solar Probe in 2018, the first NASA Mission named after a living person and became the first person to witness the launch of a spacecraft named after them.
• He was a visionary in the field of heliophysics, which focuses on the study of the sun and other stars & he is well known for this theory on the existence of solar wind, a supersonic flow of particles off the sun’s surface.
• He virtually created the field of heliophysics in the 1950s.