Chandra :: About Chandra :: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (2024)

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Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

The Man Behind The Name

Chandra in his early years
(Photo: AIP)

Chandra in his middle years
(Photo: AIP)

NASA's premier X-ray observatory was named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of the lateIndian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (pronounced: su/bra/mon'/yonchandra/say/kar). Known to the world as Chandra (which means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit), he was widely regarded as one of the foremost astrophysicists of the twentieth century.

Chandra immigrated in 1937 from India to the United States, where he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, a position he remained at until his death. He and his wife became Americancitizens in 1953.

Chandra in his later years
(Photo: Univ. of Chicago)

Trained as a physicist at Presidency College, in Madras, India and at the University of Cambridge,in England, he was one of the first scientists to combine the disciplines of physics and astronomy.Early in his career he demonstrated that there is an upper limit — now called the Chandrasekharlimit — to the mass of a white dwarf star. A white dwarf is the last stage in the evolution of astar such as the Sun. When the nuclear energy source in the center of a star such as the Sun isexhausted, it collapses to form a white dwarf. This discovery is basic to much of modernastrophysics, since it shows that stars much more massive than the Sun must either explode or formblack holes.

Chandra was a popular teacher who guided over fifty students to their Ph.D.s. His researchexplored nearly all branches of theoretical astrophysics and he published ten books, each coveringa different topic, including one on the relationship between art and science. For 19 years, heserved as editor of the Astrophysical Journal and turned it into a world-class publication. In1983, Chandra was awarded the Nobel prize for his theoretical studies of the physical processesimportant to the structure and evolution of stars.

According to Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, "Chandra was a first-rate astrophysicist and a beautiful and warm human being. I am happy to have known him."

"Chandra probably thought longer and deeper about our universe than anyone since Einstein," saidMartin Rees, Great Britain’s Astronomer Royal.

• How the Chandra X-ray Observatory got its name: See the press release.
• Press Release:

Chandra's Career

• October 19, 1910 Born in Lahore to Sita Balakrishnan and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar.
• 1918 Moved to Madras
• 1925-1930 B.Sc. Physics student at Presidency College, Madras
• 1929-1939 Studies of White Dwarf Stars
• 1930-1933 Ph.D. student at Cambridge, under R.H. Fowler
• 1931-1932 Papers on white dwarf stars
• January 11, 1935 Battle with Eddington at the RAS
• September 1936 Married Lalitha Doraiswamy
• January 1937 Moved to Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago
• 1939 Publishes Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure
• 1938-1943 Studies of Stellar Dynamics
• 1942 Publishes Principles of Stellar Dynamics
• 1943-1950 Studies of Radiative Transfer
• 1950 Publishes Radiative Transfer
• 1952 Editor of Ap.J. (till 1971)
• 1952-1961 Studies of Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability
• 1961 Publishes Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability
• 1961-1968 Studies of Figures of Equilibrium
• 1968 Publishes Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium
• 1962-1971 Studies of GR and Relativistic Astrophysics
• 1974-1983 Studies of the Mathematical Theory of Black Holes
• 1983 Publishes The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes
• 1983 Nobel prize for physics
• August 21, 1995 Died in Chicago