More than 1.1 million names installed on NASA's Parker Solar Probe

"In March 2018, the public were invited to send their names to the Sun aboard humanity’s first mission to “touch” a star. A total of 1,137,202 names were submitted online, and a memory card containing the names was installed on the spacecraft on May 18—three months before the scheduled July 31 launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The card was mounted on a plaque bearing a dedication to and a quote from the mission’s namesake, University of Chicago physicist Eugene Parker, who first theorized the existence of the solar wind."

Read the full story via UChicago News.

The Parker Solar Probe arrived in Titusville in early April to prep for launch.

Watch the 2017 announcement of the solar mission here.

Learn more about Prof. Emeritus Eugene Parker's research here, and his visit to NASA to view his namesake spacecraft here.