The landscape of potential hills and valleys in the Universe can be discerned by the motion of galaxies towards mass concentrations and away from voids. Space can be segmented into ‘basins of attraction’, which are now mapped with the aid of 56,000 galaxy velocities.

A void tens of metres in size below the Mare Tranquillitatis pit on the Moon is revealed by radar images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This finding implies that lava tubes or conduits are possibly common below lunar maria.

An Earth-mass planet is found to have a white dwarf host—the final evolutionary stage of Sun-like stars. This system suggests that terrestrial planets in Earth-like orbits may avoid being engulfed during the red-giant phases of their host stars.

JWST observations of outflows from four young stars reveal in each case a molecular wind with a central cavity surrounding a fast jet. These results point to disk winds driving accretion, with implications for planet formation and evolution.

Beneath the superficial diversity and complexity of galaxy morphology in our local Universe, galaxies show underlying simplicity and have universally bimodal distributions of normalized specific angular momentum of stars, revealed by MaNGA observations.

The landscape of potential hills and valleys in the Universe can be discerned by the motion of galaxies towards mass concentrations and away from voids. Space can be segmented into ‘basins of attraction’, which are now mapped with the aid of 56,000 galaxy velocities.

The differences between the estimated and measured organic matter abundances of asteroid Ryugu may result from variations in the superficial organic matter distribution, porosity of the asteroid’s surface or the observation geometries used in such studies.

An Earth-mass planet is found to have a white dwarf host—the final evolutionary stage of Sun-like stars. This system suggests that terrestrial planets in Earth-like orbits may avoid being engulfed during the red-giant phases of their host stars.

The 3D shapes of fractures and veins observed in Ryugu samples indicate formation by freeze–thaw, hinting that the melting and freezing of ice control the flow of water and the extent of hydration in asteroids up to 300 km in size.

In hyperarid environments, life can obtain water through salts that draw moisture from the atmosphere. These salts, then, should be a focus of searches for life on Mars. The experiments performed by NASA’s Viking landers may have accidentally killed Martian life by applying too much water.

Nature Astronomy is a selective journal whose editors examine submissions for advances in scientific understanding, robustly supported conclusions and broad relevance. Here we expound upon these criteria to help authors maximize their publication chances.

Adam Carnall’s BAGPIPES code grew out of necessity and has since developed into a widely used tool for fitting the spectra and photometry of galaxies, especially in the JWST era.