The Chandrasekhar Limit of 1.4 solar masses, is the theoretical maximum mass a white dwarf star can have and still remain a white dwarf (though this limit does vary slightly depending on the metallicity). Above this mass, electron degeneracy pressure is not enough to prevent gravity from collapsing the star further into a neutron star or black hole.
The limit was named after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar improved upon the accuracy of the calculation in 1930 by calculating the limit for a polytrope model of a star in hydrostatic equilibrium, and comparing his limit to the earlier limit found by E. C. Stoner for a uniform density star. Importantly, the existence of a limit, based on the conceptual breakthrough of combining relativity with Fermi degeneracy, was indeed first established in separate papers published by Wilhelm Anderson and E. C. Stoner in 1929. The limit was initially ignored by the community of scientists because such a limit would logically require the existence of black holes, which were considered a scientific impossibility at the time. The fact that the roles of Stoner and Anderson are often overlooked in the astronomy community has been noted.
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