The nearest most massive black hole found! AND it’s in the mass gap | Night Sky News July 2024

From Dr. Becky.

AD – FlexiSpot July Sale – Up to 50% off Sale – https://bit.ly/3VPefti
AD – FlexiSpot Standing Desk E7 PRO – https://bit.ly/3XVYXFX
In this month’s Night Sky News episode we’re chatting about how to spot the conjunction of Mars & Jupiter, the Moon occult Saturn, and the Pleiades meteor shower. Plus in space news we’ll be chatting about the intermediate mass black hole that’s been found in our galaxy, right in the mass gap where we’ve never found a black hole of that mass before, ESA’s recent Ariane 6 launch, JWST’s look at the famous Penguin galaxy, plus the asteroid Chiron turning into a comet.

The Galaxy Zoo: Euclid project needs your help classifying the shapes of galaxies – https://galaxyzoo.org/

Timings for occultation of Saturn by the Moon – http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets/0821saturn.htm

Last week’s video on all the record holders of the title “most distant galaxy” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkYeHYDneHU
My previous video on the Euclid Space Telescope – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFAB1MhYGyc
My previous Night Sky News video with an intermediate mass black hole discovery – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDWLakJW5i8

Dobson et al. (2024; Chiron brightening) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.14410
Pinilla-Alonso et al. (2024; JWST observes Chiron) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.07761
Häberle et al. (2024; intermediate black hole mass candidate in omega centauri) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.06015
Walmsley et al. (2023; ZooBot AI algorithm) – https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.05312

00:00 Intro
01:02 Jupiter + Mars + Moon end of July
02:08 Jupiter + Mars Conjunction mid-August
03:21 How to watch the Perseids Meteor Shower
05:51 Saturn x Moon Occultation
07:21 Ariane 6 inaugural launch
09:10 JUICE Earth fly-by
11:31 Chiron turns into a comet?
14:16 JWST observes the Penguin Galaxy
16:22 New candidate intermediate mass black hole found
24:03 Bloopers

Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Jonny Hyman

📚 My new 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 new 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 (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.

http://drbecky.uk.com
https://rebeccasmethurst.co.uk