Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

astrophysics · stars · Nobel Prize

Star scientist. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who studied how stars are born, live, and die. His work helped us understand some of the biggest mysteries in space.

The Chandrasekhar limit. He discovered that when a massive star dies, its fate depends on how heavy it is. If it's lighter than a certain weight (now called the Chandrasekhar limit), it becomes a white dwarf, but if it's heavier, it collapses into a neutron star or black hole.

Nobel Prize winner. In 1983, Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his amazing mathematical discoveries about how stars evolve and change over time. This is one of the highest honors a scientist can receive.

Honored with names. Scientists have named many things after Chandrasekhar because his ideas were so important. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory, a famous space telescope, is named in his honor and still helps us study stars and galaxies today.