How supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of galaxies accrete material, how they feed back into the surrounding region, and how they regulate these processes to influence the evolution of their galaxies are all hot topics in astronomical and astrophysical research. Astronomers are nearly certain that all large galaxies like the Milky Way have an SMBH, and detailed observations of them are where answers will be found. But only some galaxies are readily observed in detail, even by the powerful JWST.

Moon missions come in all shapes and sizes, from car-sized rovers packed with scientific equipment to towering rocket payloads—and now, a small, shape-shifting machine that is about the size of the average palm.

Binary asteroid systems are widespread throughout our inner solar system. For decades, the standard paradigm held that many of them form when a rapidly spinning primary asteroid casts off material, which then reaccumulates into an elongated moon orbiting near the Roche limit.

Does consciousness depend on flesh and blood? The answer is almost certainly no, according to Eric Schwitzgebel, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. In a new working paper, Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober, a former UCR graduate student who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon, assert that consciousness is likely possible in life forms made of very different stuff. Think of the five-limbed alien with a rocklike exterior in the recent blockbuster movie “Project Hail Mary.”