Scientists create "doubly magic" oxygen-28, a heavy oxygen isotope.

Oxygen-28 has 12 more neutrons than regular oxygen. Expected to be ultra-stable.

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Instead, it decayed in a zeptosecond. This baffled the physics community.

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This challenges our understanding of the nuclear strong force that binds particles in an atom's nucleus.

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The isotope was created by blasting fluorine-29 with a hydrogen target in Japan.

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Under the Standard Model, oxygen-28 should have been "doubly magic" and super stable. But it wasn't.

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The results push for more research on the mysterious forces in an atom's nucleus.

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