Astronomers have witnessed one of our universe’s biggest stars transforming into a rare stellar body, and the dramatic metamorphosis may be the prequel to a powerful supernova explosion that sees this star birth a black hole. 

WOH G64 (also known as IRAS 04553–6825) — is located in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, around 163,000 light-years away. The star is around 1540 times the size of the sun, with almost 30 times the mass of our star and 282,000 times its brightness.