Scientists have detected and observed one of the most powerful explosions in the universe within just four minutes of it occurring, setting a record for the speed at which such events have been captured at specific wavelengths and opening a new window into the physics of some of the cosmos’s most violent phenomena.
The explosion, a gamma-ray burst — the brightest type of explosion known to exist in the universe — was detected on 26 January 2026 by the Submillimeter Array observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii. Gamma-ray bursts are immense flashes of energy generated by jets fired across space, typically launched by the collapse of massive stars or the collision of extraordinarily dense objects such as neutron stars — the compacted cores of dead stars so dense that a single teaspoon of their material would weigh more than Mount Everest.
The sequence of events unfolded with extraordinary speed. An automated alert was triggered by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which detected the initial flash of gamma rays. Within 90 seconds, an on-duty operator at the Submillimeter Array had picked up the signal, and within four minutes, the observatory was already observing the burst — the fastest such observation ever made at millimetre wavelengths. Within 13 minutes, the target was locked and a separate automated analysis was producing images of the explosion in near real-time.
“It was an incredible thing to watch in real time,” said Garrett Keating, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and Smithsonian and Deputy Director of the Submillimeter Array, who led the observations. “Being able to react and process data this quickly is a big departure from how SMA usually operates, but it was absolutely critical for capturing an event where minutes matter. This was the first time we had the full system online. We learned a lot from the experience, and think we can get the response time down to as little as two to three minutes.”
Two days after the initial observation, the team carried out follow-up observations and confirmed the source had faded significantly — strong evidence they had captured the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst rather than another phenomenon.
Previous telescopes attuned to X-ray and optical wavelengths have been able to capture gamma-ray bursts within seconds or minutes of their occurrence, but millimetre-wave telescopes had not previously managed such rapid response. The breakthrough is significant because different wavelengths reveal different aspects of the physics driving these explosions.
“The SMA’s new capability is a game-changer for the field,” said Edo Berger, professor of astronomy at Harvard and a co-author of the study. Tanmoy Laskar, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah and another co-author, said: “This new capability opens a unique window into the physics behind some of the most powerful stellar explosions. With the SMA, we can now probe the structure and composition of the ejecta in unprecedented detail, bringing us closer to understanding how these explosions launch their powerful jets.”
