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Currently Playing: In this month's Night Sky News episode... #shorts

Two research groups independently discovered a new planet around the star Beta Pictoris, 63 light years away, that was a huge surprise… Yang and collaborators found 31 distant quasars, including not one, but two quasars that break the record for the most distant quasar ever found. Every reason they give for wanting to do this already has an existing solution that doesn’t require a giant space mirror. And the fact that its the same evening as the sunset eclipse, I just don’t think there’s a better night this year Welcome back to Night Sky News for July 2026 with me, astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst! In this episode we’re chatting about 3 new exciting scientific discoveries, from a new planet spotted by JWST around the star beta pictoris, to the most distant quasar ever found, spotted by Euclid, and the first “missing black hole” found in a star cluster in the Milky Way by Hubble. And of course we’ll also chat about how to see the total solar eclipse and the Perseids Meteor Shower which are coming up on Wednesday 12th August. There’s chapter markers down here if you want to skip ahead to any specific news story, and any scientific research papers I mention will all be linked in the video description below. But before we get to the latest space news, as always let’s kick things off with a quick look at what we can see in the night sky in the next few weeks. Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst --- 📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): http://lnk.to/DrBecky --- 👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): https://dr-becky.teemill.com/ --- 🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive --- 🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video! --- 👩🏽‍💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars. http://drbecky.uk.com