NASA Solar Plus Probe named after scientist who predicted that the solar wind would exist

NASA has renamed the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft - humanity's first mission to a star, which will launch in 2018 - as the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker.

Parker believed there was high speed matter and magnetism constantly escaping the sun, and that it affected the planets and space throughout our solar system.

This phenomenon, now known as the solar wind, has been proven to exist repeatedly through direct observation. Parker's work forms the basis for much of our understanding about how stars interact with the worlds that orbit them.