From Dr. Becky.
AD – Go to https://ground.news/drbecky to stay fully informed with the latest Space and Science news. Save 40% off the Vantage plan through my link for unlimited access | Hello and welcome to this episode of Night Sky News for July 2025, with me astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst. This is the show where we chat about what you should look out for in the night sky in the next month, and what’s been happening in space news in the past month. In this episode we’re chatting about the first images released from the new Rubin observatory, the construction beginning on LISA, the ESA project to build a gravitational wave detector in space, JWST’s view of the infamous bullet cluster, and the detection of 3i ATLAS the 3rd interstellar object ever found…
Cha et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.21870
Hopkins et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05318
3I/ATLAS information – https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas/
My video on Rubin’s first images – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPVcG8TZ8Wg
My video on the Rubin Observatory science goals – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3N-DjVXh44
Rubin SkyViewer App – https://skyviewer.app/
00:00 Introduction
00:57 Saturn’s evening return!
01:42 Jupiter and Venus in early morning
02:20 Maybe Mars if you’re lucky
02:43 Pluto at Opposition!
03:29 Delta Aquarids end of July
05:20 Lagoon & Triphid Nebulae
08:01 Vera Rubin Observatory first images
09:14 LISA mission starts construction
11:49 JWST’s view of the Bullet Cluster
17:50 New interstellar object 3I ATLAS
22:04 Announcement
24:24 Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Jonny Hyman
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👩🏽💻 I’m Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). 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.
