From Dr. Becky.
AD – To try everything Brilliant has to offer visit https://brilliant.org/DrBecky and you’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription which gives you unlimited daily access to Brilliant. | Welcome to this episode of Night Sky News for September 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 strongest evidence yet for past life on Mars from rocks collected by the Perseverance rover, JWST’s look at the atmosphere of the Earth-like exoplanet TRAPPIST 1e, and an update on the interstellar comet 3I ATLAS currently visiting the solar system.
00:00 Introduction
00:54 Saturn at Opposition
02:35 Neptune at Opposition
02:52 October Supermoon
04:09 Draconids and Orionids Meteor Showers
06:23 Venus & Jupiter morning skies
09:35 JWST reveals atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1e
16:46 Perseverance’s evidence for past life on Mars
20:55 JWST observes 3I ATLAS interstellar comet
29:03 Bloopers
Cordiner et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.18209
Espinoza et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.05414
Glidden et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.05407
Hibberd et al. (2025) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.12213
Hurowitz et al. (2025) – https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2025/pdf/2581.pdf
Neveu et al. (2018) – https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2017.1773
Piaulet-Ghorayeb et al. (2025) – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adf207
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.
