S. Chandrasekhar’s 107th Birthday

“Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.”  Thanks to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, we know!

Today [ 19.10.2017 ] marks the 107th birthday of the first astrophysicist to win a Nobel Prize for his theory on the evolution of stars.

A child prodigy, Chandra published his first paper and developed his theory of star evolution before turning 20. By age 34, he was elected to the Royal Society of London, and soon after, became a distinguished service professor of physics.

The Indian-American physicist’s honors are astronomical, including the National Medal of Science, the Draper Medal of the US National Academy of Science, and the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Though originally met with skepticism in the 1930s, Chandra’s theories and equations won the Nobel Prize in Physics 50 years later.

Today’s Doodle illustrates one of the most important of all of S. Chandrasekhar's contributions to our understanding of stars and their evolution: The Chandrasekhar limit. The limit explains that when a star’s mass is lighter than 1.4 times that of the sun, it eventually collapses into a denser stage called a “white dwarf.” When heavier than 1.4, a white dwarf can continue to collapse and condense, evolving into a black hole or a supernova explosion.

Today [ 19.10.2017 ] we honor the original starman whose universal theories propel current space research and modern astronomy on their ambitious missions.

Happy birthday, Chandra!

19.10.2017-Thursday-வியாழன்-Doodle-S. Chandrasekhar’s 107th Birthday-GIF