Whose discovery showed that stars can explode and seed the universe with heavy elements?
Quick Answer
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’s work on stellar evolution helped explain the fate of stars and the importance of supernovae. His ideas were central to understanding how elements are dispersed into space.
The Full Story
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar made major contributions to stellar astrophysics, including the Chandrasekhar limit, which determines the maximum mass a white dwarf can have before collapsing. His work helped clarify how massive stars end their lives and how supernovae can spread heavy elements into the cosmos. Those elements later become part of planets and living things. Chandrasekhar received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Key Facts
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