Richard Alan McCray (24 November 1937 – 26 October 2021) was an American astronomer and astrophysicist.
[3] McCray was a research fellow at Caltech from 1967 to 1968 and then an assistant professor at Harvard University from 1968 to 1971.
In particular for interstellar gas dynamics, he did research on the formation of interstellar bubbles by stellar winds and superbubbles formed by multiple supernova explosions in galactic gas disks.
He studied and modeled the evolution of the spectrum of SN1987A and with several colleagues made some correct predictions about events involving the SN1987A ring system.
In addition to theoretical calculations and computer simulations, he made observations using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.