ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Chandrasekhar equation

Okay kiddo, let's talk about something called the Chandrasekhar equation. You know how stars are big balls of hot gas that shine brightly in the sky? Well, the Chandrasekhar equation helps us understand what happens to those stars when they get too old and run out of fuel.

You see, stars like our Sun burn fuel in their cores to make light and heat. This process is called fusion. But when they run out of fuel, something very interesting happens. The star's outer layers collapse inward, while the core keeps getting hotter and denser.

That's where the Chandrasekhar equation comes in. It was discovered by a clever scientist named Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who wanted to understand what happens to stars when they collapse. He found that there is a limit to how dense the core of a star can get. This limit is called the Chandrasekhar limit.

Now, let's say a star is more massive than this limit. When it runs out of fuel, its core will collapse so much that it becomes a black hole. But if a star is less massive than the Chandrasekhar limit, it will become something called a white dwarf instead.

So, the Chandrasekhar equation helps us understand how stars evolve over time and what they become at the end of their lives. Cool, huh?