Dr. Becky
Your friendly neighbourhood astrophysicist. 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!
I have also written a few books. My latest, "A Brief History of Black Holes", is available in hardback, e-book and audio (which I narrated myself!)
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.
Channel art by Megan Smethurst: https://www.instagram.com/megansmethurst_gdesign/
Deadly radiation burst from another star detected for the first time | Night Sky News November 2025
JWST spots a star BEFORE it goes supernova | Night Sky News October 2025
FINALLY: evidence for Hawking's AREA THEOREM of black holes
Strongest evidence yet for past life on Mars from Perseverance rover | Night Sky News September 2025
How to use JWST as a direct detector of DARK MATTER
JWST reveals only a thin atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1d (an Earth sized planet in the habitable zone)
Has JWST spotted a planet around our nearest Sun-like star?!
The things we DON'T KNOW about EXOPLANETS
SUPERMASSIVE stars: fact or fiction?
Ingredients for LIFE found around newly formed star?! | Night Sky News August 2025
What came first, the galaxy or the black hole? JWST tackles astrophysics’s “chicken or egg” question
Intermediate Mass Black Holes: fact or fiction?
A new INTERSTELLAR object discovered! | Night Sky News July 2025
The FIRST images from the RUBIN observatory!
Will the Milky Way actually collide with the Andromeda galaxy?!
A Nobel Prize in Physics for science later proved WRONG?!
K2-18b: NO evidence for life in the atmosphere?! Night Sky News June 2025
Why we need to return Martian rock samples to Earth to test for signs of life
JWST’s 3 BIG mysteries of the early Universe
The search for LIFE: but NOT as we know it…
How bad are Trump's cuts to NASA? And is this the first hint of Planet 9? | Night Sky News May 2025
Does the Universe SPIN once every 500 billion years?!
K2-18b: did JWST find LIFE as we know it? Or chemistry we DON'T?
Space Roar: An unsolved mystery for 20 years
JWST spots the most distant glow of hydrogen ever found | Night Sky News April 2025
Naked Singularities: black holes WITHOUT event horizons?!
JWST finds SMOOTH DISC galaxies EARLIER in the Universe than we thought
New study explains why Mars is RED
MORE evidence for DARK ENERGY changing with time?! | Night Sky News March 2025
JWST shows our supermassive black hole is FLICKERING