One of the longest stellar dimming events ever observed was likely caused by the gigantic saucer-like rings of either an unseen brown dwarf or 'super-Jupiter' blocking its host star's light, astronomers say. For decades the star – which sits 3,200 light-years from Earth and is about twice as big as our Sun – had been observed as stable, but at the end of 2024 it faded dramatically. It then remained this way for more than nine months, far longer than is normal for an event like this, sparking confusion among researchers and prompting speculation as to what could have caused such an "extremely rare" phenomenon. Now, in a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team of international researchers believe they may have solved the riddle of this mysterious star in the Monoceros constellation.

Recent research suggests that Saturn’s bright rings and its largest moon, Titan, may have both originated in collisions among its moons. While Cassini’s 13-year mission expanded our understanding of Saturn, the discoveries of its young rings and Titan’s rapidly shifting orbit raised new questions. Now, a study led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk proposes an explanation linking the formation of the moons and rings, centering on the possibility that Titan is the product of a moon merger.

Near the end of its mission, Cassini measured Saturn’s internal mass distribution, which governs the planet’s slow spin-axis wobble, or precession. For decades, scientists thought Saturn’s precession period matched Neptune’s, enabling the two planets’ gravitational interactions to gradually tilt Saturn and let us clearly see its rings. Cassini’s final trajectory showed Saturn’s mass is slightly more concentrated at its center than expected, changing its precession rate so it no longer matches Neptune’s. To explain this, researchers at MIT and UC Berkeley proposed that Saturn once had an extra moon, which was ejected after a close encounter with Titan and broke up to form the rings.

USA: What appears to be a single volcanic eruption is often the result of complex processes operating deep beneath the surface, where magma moves, evolves, and changes over long periods of time. To fully understand how volcanoes work, scientists study the volcanic products that erupt at the surface, which can reveal the hidden magmatic systems feeding volcanic activity. New research published recently in Geology shows that this complexity also applies to Mars.

The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists today announced the Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. The Awards recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering. Now in its ninth year, each Blavatnik Awards Laureate will receive an unrestricted £100,000 (US$135,000) prize, while the remaining six Finalists will be awarded £30,000 (US$40,400) each. 

This year’s Finalists include:

 

Chemical Sciences Finalists

Michael J. Booth, PhD – University College London (UCL)

Mathew H. Horrocks, PhD – The University of Edinburgh

Maxie M. Roessler, DPhil – Imperial College London

 

Life Sciences Finalists

Nicholas R. Casewell, PhD – Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Thi Hoang Duong (Kelly) Nguyen, PhD – MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Pontus Skoglund, PhD – The Francis Crick Institute

 

Physical Sciences & Engineering Finalists

Radha Boya, PhD – The University of Manchester

Paola Pinilla, PhD – University College London (UCL)

Iestyn Woolway, PhD – Bangor University

 

Amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life, were previously found in samples of 4.6-billion-year-old rocks from an asteroid called Bennu, delivered to Earth in 2023 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. How those amino acids — the molecules that create proteins and peptides in DNA — formed in space was a mystery, but new research led by Penn State scientists shows they could have originated in an icy-cold, radioactive environment at the dawn of Earth’s solar system.