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Curated by: Dr. Becky (610 videos)
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 both coming up on Wednesday 12th August. Papers mentioned: Yang et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.03432 Whitaker et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.18350 Sutlieff et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.23801v2 Gibbs et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.23789 Previous videos: Intermediate mass black hole found in Omega Cen - https://youtu.be/tOUWrBy0a4c?t=984 Intermediate mass black holes: fact or fiction? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr8CJAOlGVc Why you should believe the hype for Roman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EiTby2Lku8 Eclipse links: http://ukeclipse.com https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/safety/ 00:00 - Introduction 01:40 - Total solar eclipse 12th August 03:25 - Perseids Meteor shower 12th August 05:32 - Saturn in the evening skies 07:24 - UK funding cut reversal 09:25 - Reflect Orbital’s sunlight satellite 12:50 - JWST's Β Pictoris d discovery 15:57 - Euclid finds 2 new most distant quasars 18:30 - Black hole finally found in Omega Centauri by Hubble 24:47 - Bloopers 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