Alexei V. Filippenko

In a dance with an ordinary star, astronomers have found a true heavyweight — a neutron star with 2.35 times the mass of the Sun. That's more than any other whose mass has been precisely measured. These objects are born when a star explodes as a supernova and its core collapses into a city-sized sphere.

Light from the distant Dragon Galaxy has been traveling toward us for more than seven billion years. On its way, it passes by a huge galaxy cluster whose gravity bends the path of light like a lens. As a result, the galaxy appears brighter and larger than it really is, just as a magnifying glass enlarges fine print.

A light bulb that doesn't burn out but flares brighter and brighter until it blows the whole fixture apart. That's roughly how the most massive stars in the universe die. When a star's core heats up to billions of degrees, pairs of particles (electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons) begin to form.

A massive star ends its life in a spectacular collapse: the core compresses into a neutron star or a black hole, while the outer layers fly off in a dazzling supernova.