Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan

(born Oct. 19, 1910, Lahore, India—died Aug. 21, 1995, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) Indian-born U.S. astrophysicist. He left the University of Cambridge to join the staff of the University of Chicago in 1938. He determined that, following its red giant phase, a star with a remaining mass greater than 1.4 times that of the Sun (the Chandrasekhar limit) collapses and becomes a neutron star during a supernova explosion. Stellar remnants more massive than about three solar masses collapse even further to become black holes. He shared a 1983 Nobel Prize with William A. Fowler.

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