JWST discovers “platypus galaxies” in the distant Universe | Night Sky News January 2026

Hello! And welcome to this episode of Night Sky News for January 2026 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 preparations for the launch of Artemis II (NASA’s mission to loop astronauts around the moon), plus JWST’s discovery of some distant “platypus galaxies” that we can’t yet explain, and the discovery of a starless gas cloud that is yet another piece of evidence towards the existence of dark matter in our Universe.

This is astronomy and astrophysics direct from an astrophysicist.

Anand et al. (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.20157
Greenstreet et al. (2026) - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
Yan, Sun & Shive (2026) - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12177

My previous video on Rubin's first light images -    • The FIRST images from the RUBIN observatory!  
My previous video on Trump's cuts to NASA budget -    • How bad are Trump's cuts to NASA? And is t...  


00:00 Introduction
00:54 - Saturn, Moon & Neptune 23rd-15th
02:23 - Moon & Pleiades 27th
02:46 - Supermoon, Winter Hexagon & Jupiter 29th & 30th
04:28 - Mercury, Moon & Saturn 19th
05:25 - More detail on Rubin's asteroid discoveries
09:15 - Starless gas cloud discovery
11:10 - JWST's "platypus galaxies" discovery
14:05 - Artemis II mission closer to launch

Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: https://www.fiverr.com/mgs_editing

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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.


http://drbecky.uk.com