S Chandrasekhar: Five things you may not know about the science prodigy
He added nuance to our understanding of what happens to stars as they die
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Your support makes all the difference.Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is responsible for some of the most important research ever done – helping us understand the evolution of stars, and inching closer to better understanding the nature of the universe itself.
Mr Chandrasekhar, whose 107th birthday would have been Thursday, was the first astrophysicist to win a Nobel Prize when he was given it for his theory on the evolution of stars. He determined that not all stars will turn into white dwarfs, and that something far more strange awaited the big ones.
Here are five things to know.
1. Mr Chandrasekhar’s work challenged our previous understanding of what happens to stars as they get to the end of their life
Previously, scientists up until the 1930s had thought that stars collapse into white dwarves, after they convert their hydrogen and helium stores. White dwarves, which are about the size of Earth, become extremely dense as their electrons and nuclei are compressed.
2. But Mr Chandrasekhar expanded on that understanding, determining that not all stars are created equal
He found that some stars don’t simply stop contracting later in life. Stars that have a mass more than 1.44 times that of our Sun, he found, would continue to contract. That 1.44 figure, known as the Chandrasekhar limit, was a major step in understanding how neutron stars are created, and what sparks supernova explosions.
3. His findings hinted at the existence of black holes
Stars with much more mass than our sun will continue to contract beyond the white dwarf stage. That continued contraction is what creates supernovas. For those stars with much more mass, the continued contraction is thought to eventually yield a black hole.
4. He published his first theories on star evolution before he turned 20
The Indian-American physicist was also elected to the Royal Society of London before the age of 34, and became a distinguished service professor of Physics not too long after that.
5. He was a pioneer for astrophysicists
He became the first astrophysicist to win a Nobel Peace prize for his work on the Chandrasekhar limit, which he received in 1983 alongside William A Fowler.
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