Unseen planet or brown dwarf may have hidden 'rare' fading star

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.