{"id":232011,"date":"2026-02-25T01:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/one-of-the-biggest-stars-in-the-universe-might-be-getting-ready-to-explode"},"modified":"2026-02-25T01:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:07:12","slug":"one-of-the-biggest-stars-in-the-universe-might-be-getting-ready-to-explode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/one-of-the-biggest-stars-in-the-universe-might-be-getting-ready-to-explode","title":{"rendered":"One of the biggest stars in the universe might be getting ready to explode"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/one-of-the-biggest-stars-in-the-universe-might-be-getting-ready-to-explode.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the largest known stars in the universe underwent a dramatic transformation in 2014, new research shows, and may be preparing to explode. A study led by Gonzalo Mu\u00f1oz-Sanchez at the National Observatory of Athens, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41550-026-02789-7\" target=\"_blank\">published in <i>Nature Astronomy<\/i> today<\/a>, argues that the enormous star WOH G64 has transitioned from a red supergiant to a rare yellow hypergiant\u2014in what may be evidence of an impending supernova.<\/p>\n<p>The evidence suggests we may be witnessing, in real time, a massive star shedding its outer layers, shrinking as it heats up, and moving closer to the end of its short life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the largest known stars in the universe underwent a dramatic transformation in 2014, new research shows, and may be preparing to explode. A study led by Gonzalo Mu\u00f1oz-Sanchez at the National Observatory of Athens, published in Nature Astronomy today, argues that the enormous star WOH G64 has transitioned from a red supergiant to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}