D. Jarvis

On the night of August 18, 2025, the SVOM space telescope detected a short gamma-ray burst — a powerful flash of energy lasting less than two seconds. Such bursts are usually linked to mergers of neutron stars, the ultra-dense remnants of dead stars.

Eclipses in binary stars are like clockwork: a white dwarf (the dense remnant of a star) regularly passes in front of its companion, and the light briefly dims. But for most such pairs, the clock runs fast or slow by seconds over years. Astronomers measured these glitches in 43 systems and found a pattern.