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Eugene N. Parker (born June 10, 1927) is an American solar astrophysicist who received his B.S. 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 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. The theoretical models which he developed in part by looking at comet tails have in recent years been confirmed by spacecraft. 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.
He also wrote about the dangers of space radiation for future interplanetary missions.
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."
Books
- Cosmical Magnetic Fields: Their Origin and their Activity, 1979, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198512905.
- Spontaneous Current Sheets in Magnetic Fields: With Applications to Stellar X-rays, 1994, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195073713.
- Conversations on Electric and Magnetic Fields in the Cosmos, 2007, Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691128412.
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