Social media users have spotted what they claim might be an "alien" in a picture of Mars which was captured by NASA's Curiosity rover in 2023. The picture shows a small jellyfish-like figure in the left corner. Another image of the same area taken less than a minute earlier showed no sign of the mysterious figure.

The government has announced a new experimental cancer drug RK-251 that could replace traditional chemotherapy. The "smart" drug is designed to switch on and work only inside cancer cells, and does not harm healthy cells. It has been developed by Dr Asis Bala from the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST) and Dr KP Bhabak from IIT-Guwahati.

NASA and Katalyst Space have called off a $30 million (over ₹285 crore) mission to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after its LINK rescue spacecraft suffered persistent attitude-control problems. LINK was meant to grab Swift and raise its decaying orbit. Swift, launched in 2004, is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up later this year.

Scientists created an exotic quantum state by joining a Weyl semimetal with spin ice, revealing emergent electronic behaviour absent in either material alone. The interface shifted from sixfold to twofold electrical symmetry under magnetic fields, offering fresh insights into quantum physics and paving the way for advanced spintronic and sensing technologies.

Chinese surgeons achieved the world's first successful double-thigh replantation after a factory accident, reconnecting both limbs in an eight-hour microsurgery. Despite skin necrosis and bone-healing complications, the 51-year-old patient regained sensation, can stand and walk indoors with a walker, and manages most daily tasks nearly 20 months later.

Scientists have discovered S301, the fastest known star in Milky Way, reaching about 25,000 km per second as it races around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of Milky Way. The star completes an orbit in 8.7 years. It was detected with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer.

Astronaut Don Pettit has shared a picture of Maha Kumbh Mela that he took from space aboard the International Space Station last year. "My best shot of the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela...It is...one of the largest events in the world, with millions of people in this single photo," he wrote with the image.

A low-cost, highly durable bifunctional catalyst to split water into hydrogen and oxygen has been developed in India. New research from IIT Bombay combined cobalt, nickel, and exfoliated graphite via molecular precursor engineering. The amalgamation creates a noble-metal-free material that paves the way for affordable, large-scale green hydrogen production.

Some Earth microbes likely to travel to space with human explorers could survive in the shaded nooks and crannies of the Moon's South Pole region, NASA found. However, there's no evidence that they can grow or replicate there. Bringing microbes to the Moon is "unavoidable", as humans have an average of 1 million bacteria per pencil-eraser-sized skin patch, NASA said.

Climate change has warmed up European seas and is putting pressure on marine ecosystems, a study found. Human-caused warming raised Mediterranean sea temperatures by about 2°C and added over 1.3°C-1.4°C across Western European waters, it added. Researchers said that this can cause "reshuffling" among marine species while also raising humidity along coastlines.