Premium
On Stars, Their Evolution and Their Stability (Nobel Lecture)
Author(s) -
Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition in english
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 0570-0833
DOI - 10.1002/anie.198406791
Subject(s) - chandrasekhar limit , white dwarf , physics , stars , solar mass , neutron star , astrophysics , astronomy , massive compact halo object
That the fate of stars is determined by their masses , and thus, that not all stars end as white dwarfs, is one of the underlying principles of the work of S. Chandrasekhar (Nobel Prize for Physics 1983). Because of the relativistic increase in mass of the electron there is an upper limit for the mass of white dwarfs: about 1.4 solar masses. Stars with about 2 solar masses form neutron stars as the final state; beyond this limit, black holes are formed.