A giant explosion that lit up the sky didn't just rock the cosmos – it absolutely rattled our understanding of the Universe's most powerful outbursts.

The gamma-ray burst (GRB) recorded on 2 July 2025 is the longest of its kind ever observed, lasting about a day. By comparison, GRBs normally last on the scale of milliseconds to minutes at most.

Moreover, it did something astronomers have never seen a GRB do before: it appears to have repeated. This can't be neatly explained by our current models for what causes them.

Related: Brightest Space Explosion Ever May Hide an Elusive Dark Matter Particle

"This event is unlike any other seen in 50 years of GRB observations," says astrophysicist Antonio Martin-Carrillo of University College Dublin.

"GRBs are catastrophic events so they are

See Full Page