Chandra's Acheivements
Chandra was awarded many honorary degrees and
medals.
*He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1944, which awarded
him
the Bruce Medal in 1952.
*The Royal Astronomical Society awarded him its Gold
Medal in 1953.
*He was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Lyndon
Johnson in 1967.
*The fundamental nature of Chandra's mass limit for degenerate
stars has come to be appreciated in the astronomy and physics
communities, recognizing
that it is perhaps the most direct and striking example of the effect
of
quantum physics on macroscopic bodies.
*Chandra was awarded a Nobel Prize by
King Carl Gustav in 1983 in recognition of his work of fifty years
before.
*In 1999, NASA named the
third of its four "Great Observatories'" after Chandrasekhar. This
followed a naming contest which attracted 6,000 entries from fifty
states and sixty-one countries. *The Chandra X-ray
Observatory was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999.
*The asteriod 1958 Chandra is also named after
Chandrasekhar.