Eugene Parker, a pioneering American astrophysicist whose mathematical prediction that charged particles streamed from stars in a solar wind was met with disbelief before he was ultimately vindicated, has died aged 94, NASA said on Wednesday.

Parker was hailed as a visionary who laid the groundwork for the field of heliophysics, the science of understanding the Sun and its interactions with Earth and the solar system, including space weather.

In 2018, he became the first person to witness the launch of a spacecraft bearing his name, NASA's Parker Solar Probe.

There's a powerful new member of NASA's family of giant antennas that enable engineers and scientists on Earth to communicate with the growing number of spacecraft exploring our solar system.

Called Deep Space Station 53, or DSS-53, the 111-foot (34-meter) antenna is part of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN).