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'''[[Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar]]''', [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]] ({{IPAc-en|audio=ChandrasekharPronunciation.ogg|ˌ|tʃ|ʌ|n|d|r|ə|ˈ|ʃ|eɪ|k|ɑr}}; {{langx|ta|சுப்பிரமணியன் சந்திரசேகர்}}; October 19, 1910 &ndash; August 21, 1995) was an [[India]]n-American [[astrophysicist]] who, with [[William A. Fowler]], won the 1983 [[Nobel Prize for Physics]] for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of [[Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman]], who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. 

Chandrasekhar's most notable work was the [[astrophysics|astrophysical]] [[Chandrasekhar limit]]. The limit describes the maximum mass of a [[white dwarf]] star, ~ 1.44 [[solar mass]], or equivalently, the minimum mass above which a star will ultimately collapse into a [[neutron star]] or [[black hole]] (following a [[supernova]]). The limit was first calculated by Chandrasekhar in 1930 during his maiden voyage from India to [[Cambridge, England|Cambridge]], [[England]], for his graduate studies. In 1999, the [[NASA]] named the third of its four "Great Observatories" after Chandrasekhar. The [[Chandra X-ray Observatory]] was launched and deployed by [[Space Shuttle Columbia|Space Shuttle ''Columbia'']] on July 23, 1999. The [[Chandrasekhar number]], an important [[dimensionless number]] of [[magnetohydrodynamics]], is named after him. The [[asteroid]] [[1958 Chandra]] is also named after Chandrasekhar. American astronomer [[Carl Sagan]], who studied Mathematics under Chandrasekhar, at the University of Chicago, praised him in the book ''[[The Demon-Haunted World]]'': "I discovered what true mathematical elegance is from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar." From 1952 to 1971 Chandrasekhar also served as the editor of the [[Astrophysical Journal]].

He was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the [[stellar structure|structure]] and [[stellar evolution|evolution of stars]]. Chandrasekhar accepted this honor, but was upset that the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing it as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement. He shared it with [[William A. Fowler]].


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