PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 21.--Dr. George Ellery Hale, one of the world's most renowned astronomers, died of heart trouble today in the Las Encinas Sanitarium. He was 69 years old, born in Chicago June 29, 1868. Dr. Hale was credited with founding the Yerkes Observatory in Chicago and the Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain Observatories in Southern California. He was a brother of William B. Hale, Chicago lawyer. Distinguished scientists called him "the modern Zoroaster" and the "priest of the sun." He invented the spectroheliograph and first learned that the sun's outer shell is made of gas. He photographed colossal hurricanes of incandescent vapor, discovered that the flaming whirlpools of hydrogen leaped 300,000 miles from the surface of the sun and were large enough to engulf the earth like a cinder in a furnace. The scientist was unusually active until he became ill a year ago. He entered the sanitarium a few months ago after a stroke. Typical of the honors bestowed upon him was the Sir Godfrey Copley medal, first awarded to Benjamin Franklin by the Royal Society of Great Britain. Dr. Hale won it in 1932 for his discovery of magnetic fields in sunspots, termed "the most vital thing accomplished in solar astronomy in 300 years." He was organizer and director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Mount Wilson Observatory, equipped with a 100-inch mirror, from 1904 to 1923, and was honorary director since then. He became chairman of the California Institute of Technology observatory council in charge of construction of the Palomar observatory with its giant 200-inch reflectors. He was trustee of the California Institute of Technology. It was said that his vision led to the founding of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, of which he was also a trustee. Dr. Alexia Carrel, surgeon and Nobel Prize winner, called Dr. Hale a "Father of Intellectual achievement." Dr. Carrel said that Dr. Hale convinced the founders of California Tech to dedicate the institution to the search for knowledge for its own sake instead of to the improvement of industrial technique. "Because of him, undoubtedly, Dr. Robert A. Millikan, Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan and Dr. Arthur Noyes were willing to leave the beaten paths of the East and cast their lots with California Tech," Dr. Carrel explained. In recent years Dr. Hale obtained new clews to the nature of magnetism and striking indications to prove that the entire sun is a whirling magnet. With Dr. R. M. Langer he made it possible to calculate the displacement of spectral lines due to solar magnetism to be one of twenty-thousandth of an inch in width. Dr. Hale was a member of a score of scientific societies and author of six books on astronomy. In 1931 he succeeded M. Auguste Picard, stratosphere balloonist, as president of the International Council of Scientific Unions. Surviving also are his widow, Mrs. Evelina S. Hale; a son, William Ellery Hale of South Pasadena; a daughter, Mrs. Margaret Hale Scherer of San Francisco, and a sister, Mrs. William W. Harts of Madison, Conn. Dr. Hale received the gold medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the highest honor the institute could award him, for his work in inventing the spectroscope, the spectroheliograph and other basic astronomical instruments, according to The Associated Press. The same institution, prior to May 3, 1927, gave him the Elliott Cresson medal for his researches on the sun. He also received the Janssen medal of the Paris Academy of Sciences, the Rumford medal of the American Academy of Sciences and the Draper medal of the National Academy of Sciences. Later he received the Bruce medal, the Galileo medal of the University of Florence, Italy, and the Actonian prize of the Royal Institution of London. Belgium decorated Dr. Hale with the Order of Leopold and Italy awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy. On July 2, 1919, he was elected an associate of Academie des Sciences, Institut de France. He was an honorary member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences and honorary chairman of the National Research Council. In February, 1927, he was awarded the Arthur Noble medal for 1926, awarded each year to the Pasadena resident who did the most for the city.