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 August 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 latest dwarf planet discovered at the edge of the solar system which is ruling out the possibility of a 9th planet, plus LIGO has spotted its most massive black hole merger GW231123, and has ALMA has found the ingredients for life in a newly forming planet system around a star?!
Lunar eclipse information for your location – https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2025-september-7
Batygin & Brown (2016) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05438
Chen et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.02162
Fadul et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.14905
Groth et al. (2025) – https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/523/2/2876/7176071?login=false
Lagrange et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.15081
LIGO collaboration (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.08219
Potiszil et al. (2023) – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37107-6
00:00 Introduction
00:52 Perseids Meteor Shower
03:51 Moon meets Jupiter & Venus
04:29 Orion’s return!
04:47 Lunar Eclipse for Asia, Oceania, Europe
06:03 JWST goodies
06:37 AD
08:34 ALMA ingredients around V883 Ori
11:03 First woman appointed as Astronomer Royal
11:55 LIGO detects most massive black hole merger GW231123
15:21 Sednoid discovery casts doubt on Planet 9
21:20 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.
