Description:
Kumar Chandrasekhar Kumar Chandrasekhar was born on January 17, 1954, in a small town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He is an Indian astrophysicist and the co-founder of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Chandrasekhar's parents were both teachers, and he was raised in a devout Hindu household. He attended the Madras University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1976. He then attended the University of Cambridge, where he earned a Master of Science degree in astrophysics in 1978 and a Doctor of Science degree in astrophysics in 1983. Chandrasekhar began his career at the University of Cambridge, where he was a postdoctoral researcher from 1978 to 1981. He then moved to the University of Chicago, where he was a professor of physics from 1981 to 1995. He was the head of the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago from 1995 to 2001, and he served as the chancellor of the University of Chicago from 2001 to 2006. Chandrasekhar co-founded the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in 1999. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is the world's most powerful X-ray observatory, and it has been used to study the origins and evolution of stars and galaxies. Chandrasekhar has also been involved in the development of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the European Space Agency's Planck space observatory. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the National Medal of Science in 2006, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
