The FASTEST growing supermassive black hole EVER found | Night Sky News March 2024

Ad: Go to ground.news/drbecky to read up on research and the way news interprets it for us. Sign up through my link to get 40% off unlimited access this month. | In this month's Night Sky News we're chatting all about how you can watch the total solar eclipse on the 8th April 2024 across Mexico, the USA, and & Canada, the importance of the space exploration milestone of Intuitive Machines and their Odysseus lander on the Moon, the hard decision NSF faces on whether to continue to fund the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii or the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile, and the fastest growing supermassive black hole that's ever been found! #astronomy #space #nasa
"Our Accidental Universe" by Prof Chris Lintott out in the UK on 21st March (note that in the USA the book is called “Accidental Astronomy” and the release date is 11th June) - www.penguin.co.uk/books/44466...
NASA eclipse map - science.nasa.gov/eclipses/fut...
timeanddate.com interactive eclipse map with timings - www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/m...
@TheEclipseCompany map with cloud cover percentages and community events - theeclipse.company/map/2024-t...
What is the Hubble Space Telescope observing now: science.nasa.gov/mission/hubb...
What is the James Webb Space Telescope observing now: science.nasa.gov/mission/webb...
Act now to help save the Chandra X-ray telescope (how to contact Congress) - www.savechandra.org/act
Wolf et al. (2024; quasar J0529-4351 properties confirmed as fastest growing) - arxiv.org/pdf/2402.15101.pdf
Onken et al. (2023; quasar J0529-4351 first identified) - arxiv.org/pdf/2209.09342.pdf
Fan et al. (2019; the previously fastest growing quasar known) - arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11924.pdf
00:00 Intro
01:04 Mercury @ Greatest Eastern Elongation with Jupiter (24th March)
02:29 Saturn returns with Mars + Toenail Moon! (6th Apr)
03:32 TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE! (North America, 8th April)
06:08 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse (24th March)
06:39 Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks update!
08:41 Ground News
10:27 NASA Space Telescope Live
11:25 Odysseus IM-1 Moon landing
14:31 NSF given ultimatum to choose either TMT or GMT
20:51 NASA must cut budget to Chandra X-Ray Observatory
21:54 Fastest growing SMBH ever found!
30:09 Conclusion
31:21 Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
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📚 My new book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
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👕 My new merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com/
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🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
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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.
drbecky.uk.com
rebeccasmethurst.co.uk

[@DrBecky]

AD | Go to ground.news/drbecky to read up on research and the way news interprets it for us. Sign up through my link to get 30% off unlimited access this month.

[@Michaelcaba]

Dr. Becky. Love your show, but using old eclipse glasses can be dangerous. Astronomy Magazine (April 2024, p. 15) elaborates on this danger in the following way: "No one can deny the beauty of a solar eclipse . . . One note of caution, however: If you saved your eclipse glasses from seven years ago, toss them. The protective coating deteriorates over time and typically doesn’t last more than three years." - Dr. Michael J. Caba

[@dtriplett03]

How about those links Dr. BECKY❤🎉

[@dtriplett03]

Links?❤🎉

[@user-uu2cd4wl3i]

Basically an electron is made up of really condensed pieces of its fields smoke liquid energy and these are probably little round piece's of energy.... 😂😂 that are inside the electron and they're just condensed enough to combine to make one piece of energy or one particle... So the collide and push one another and this is why... We see vibrates so they collide in the center and push away from the center of the electron and the center pieces pull the on the other little pieces that are traveling away from the collision in the center..... And gravitational pull from the pieces in the center pulls the other little pieces that are being pushed away from center of the electron... back towards the center of the electron because of the other little pieces in the center...... Good enough my name is Dylan ray Stone Okay so the field that makes up gravity is in all fields.... Accept space which is also its own field.... Or you could say time acts like a smoke and some pieces of the smoke are more condensed than others and whenever these close to the same condensity pieces collide they pull in on other fields and their own field creating a gravitational pull... Or it's another field inside the second field... Doing the same thing as time and then basically one of those pieces becomes condensed enough it pulls on the second field. Then the first field also pulls on its little uncondensed pieces to create what we call gravitational pull😂

[@revdrjon]

If you're interested in an extensive look at an extensive analysis of the history and background of the TMT and Mauna Kea, including personal experience, i can highly recommend astronomy youtuber Dr Fatima's video "astronomy has a colonialism problem".

[@JPF1077]

I'm here for the science but the way Dr Becky radiates joy and happiness can't be ignored.

[@adamphilip1623]

Right! I appreciate unapologetic enthusiasm so much, this stuff is cool, excitement is the correct response!

[@SSGLGamesVlogs]

Looks like you guys survived the ground telescope status update.

[@csh43166]

@@adamphilip1623 100% agree!!

[@user-dh6bj2me5p]

Her positivity is infectious.

[@user-dh6bj2me5p]

I think I heard the middle "T" when she said, "Saturn." If I document it, and write a research paper, will she peer review it?

[@hugegamer5988]

I had no idea comets were like cats, but this makes sense. You get the idea you’re only around because they let you.

[@pobsdad]

And they knock things over, ask the dinosaurs.

[@tharangabasnayake]

Would have been amusing if there was a science paper style screenshot/ thumbnail for Dr. Massey's quote

[@csh43166]

LOL!!! Exactly!! 😼☄

[@davidcerutti8795]

By my back of the envelope calculation, that quasar is 400 trillion times brighter than the sun. It's emitting in about 14 minutes the energy that the sun will release in its lifetime.

[@kamrynsikes]

It’s factoids like this that drive my wonder of the cosmos.

[@Yenadar]

And the size of it it's accretion disc means that if our son was at its center, alpha centauri would be in the disc.

[@myaccount6487]

Lovely. Put your pen and envelope down. It’s your round get the beers in. I’ll have a lager.😂

[@vonkug]

That's a big envelope.

[@user-vg8yw2yq5g]

I seriously doubt that you actually used an envelope. If I wanted to use an envelope I would have to get assistance from the wife to find one.

[@SKy_the_Thunder]

A note on "commercialization of space exploration": That also comes with "commercialization of space". The same company currently trying to be the next big player in rocketry is the same company cluttering the sky with _thousands_ of satellites, massively disrupting ground-based telescopes. And it's not like it the total cost will be any lower if you add a profit-oriented middleman. "We can benefit from their commercial interest" only works until you're so dependent on them, going back is near impossible. We've seen what the privatization of other public infrastructure has done in the past - from rail over power to the prison system in some places... They typically end up delivering the bare minimum while collecting subsidies - and getting bailed out whenever they were too aggressive at cutting costs, because they're "too essential" to fail.

[@piotrd.4850]

Nailed it. Because commercialization doesn't really mean it. Just like you mentioned, it's not giving something up to more or less free market. It's just wealth redistribution from poor public sectors to ever richer, selected private ones. If it can't fail and depends on publics subsidies - it's not commercial.

[@decaydjk8922]

@@piotrd.4850I mean that's all capitalism has ever been. The capitalist system relies on state funding and state force.

[@Trollificusv2]

Oh sure. Like any other system isn't going to have rent-seekers, grifters, corruption and bureaucrats with their hand in every line item and budgetary provision. What you are whining about is human greed, amorality and moral weakness, not "capitalism". Or maybe it is capitalism, and every other system of control of human economy. Gee...maybe if we tried an economic system that claimed to have good intentions! What could possibly go wrong.

[@SKy_the_Thunder]

@@Trollificusv2 Where did _that_ strawman come from? I'm not talking about economic systems or corruption or anything like that. I'm saying that giving away control over a system that you rely on rarely goes well. Nothing anti-capitalist about keeping your own assets under your control instead of making yourself dependent on another party with its own independent interests. That's just basic risk assessment.

[@Dan-Simms]

I mentioned the solar eclipse to a friend and their kid the other day and they thought it was going to be dark for half a week and get super cold! Said they learned it from twitter and tiktok...smh and we are not even in the area of totality. So i explained how it all worked. Missinfo man, sad.

[@jasonsumma1530]

I was in line for the 2017 total eclipse and it was a bit strange for those few minutes. I think the temp did drop a little. What was interesting was how the animals reacted.

[@jyvben1520]

@@jasonsumma1530 doubting their internal clock probably, thinking their last meal was bad ?

[@sylviahoffman9440]

I heard some b.s. about 3 days of darkness when we pass thru the Photon belt. 😮 I was like 🙄

[@johnladuke6475]

_So much_ misinformation. If you just ask your village wise man, he'll tell you that a turtle is going to try to eat the sun god, but the sun god is going to burn out his belly and come back to life. _Duh._ The wise man has seen it five times, and the last wise man saw it seven times. If you just burn the right herbs to help the sun god stay strong everything will be fine.

[@Dan-Simms]

@@sylviahoffman9440 yeah, how can some people really mix up 3-4 mins with 3-4 days? Like just think for a second how fast the sun moves.

[@wmdopple]

Re: the colander trick: also good to know is that, if you find a tree with leaves spaced out enough that it results in a sun-dappled patch of shade on the ground, it can also end up focusing the same sort of images of the eclipse on the ground. Last time I was present for an eclipse, after totality we looked down and suddenly realized that there were crescent-shaped patches of light _everywhere around us_.

[@ryanfranz6715]

Thank you for the Odysseus lander shout out! I worked on that mission. Really cool to hear about something I worked on through one of my regular, trusted, sources. Plus you didn’t shame us for tipping over 😂, as always you’re focused on the science and bigger picture.

[@JeeVeeHaych]

I reckon that must be one of the most frustrating things about astronomy: after years of preparation having every little detail work like a charm, safe and long journey completed with all systems go but... the damn thing just needs a little nudge and you can't reach it.

[@user-cj9tr9nq5j]

Correction: (With Mercury's 'this time) 'Greatest Elongation forms a Right-Angle at Mercury, rather than at the Sun.

[@tpottrell]

I'm taking my 11 y/o daughter from the UK to see the eclipse in Bloomington - our first total eclipse. Can't wait😎

[@FriedrichHerschel]

I've seen several. It's an amazing thing to see, I wish you a clear sky.

[@seadog8807]

17 billion solar mass black hole that existed just 2 billion years after the Big Bang… how does that fit with measurements of other supermassive black holes of a similar age? Great episode, many thanks!

[@fwd79]

12:00 To all non-UK viewers, Dr Becky means *Private* whenever the word *Commercial* is said.

[@flabreque]

My favourite Calvin & Hobbes cartoon is just Calvin walking with “zip zop zip zop zip zop” written behind him. He turns around, smiles and simply says: “Snow pants!” I feel Dr. Becky’s reaction to receiving her ski pants is the same.

[@DavidDatura]

What an unfortunate situation with all these telescopes, disappointing…

[@aozoratenshu]

An accretion disc 7 LY across is just staggering.

[@Nomad77ca]

How large would that make the event horizon?? I'm guessing larger than our whole solar system.

[@aozoratenshu]

@@Nomad77ca Even at the most liberal estimate of the size of the Oort Cloud, 7LY across is more than twice the size of our solar system.

[@mray1137]

And that was the size 12 billion years ago!?! How big would the accretion disk be right now?

[@theoriginalstoney]

Hi Becky, I’ve a video request, as I have a question on black holes (your favourite topic): White Dwarves are held up by electron degeneracy pressure. Add more mass and a neutron star is held up by neutron degeneracy pressure. (I’m “mass”-ively simplifying to fit this into a comment…) Beyond that - it’s just a black hole with a singularity. Why are we sure it’s not a “something else” degeneracy pressure preventing the singularity e.g. quark matter and instead always state it’s a singularity? It’s ultimately unknowable, I guess, as it’s the wrong side of the event horizon, but I’m curious why there’s confidence in the singularity and why we rule out something else. I assume it’s the maths - but could you do an explainer on that? Would make a very interesting video.

[@CaseyW491]

You're my favorite science communicator, along with Anton Petrov. Always appreciate the new videos!

[@michaellong5714]

I went up Mauna Kea in January on a 10 person tour. At the turn-off road, we passed a site where there had been protests and some road blocking, but there was exactly 1 tent and maybe 1 sort of lean-to still there with no one in sight. A problem we were told was that in some digging, a burial ground was found, so the scope would have to be re-sited. And it's a little more complex, as some native Hawaiian groups do feel that astronomy is a natural extension of the original Polynesians who used navigating by stars to come to Hawaii. One other aspect we were told is that it's also required that if a new scope goes up, an old one has to come down, so there will be no 'growth', just maintenance of the current (or less even) number of scopes on top. It was interesting to view them all, though sadly none were open to enter, and at the first, the gate was open but an occupant came out smiling at us, slammed the gate shut and returned inside. None of us were even close to entering, respecting the gate there, open or not.

[@littlekingofthebirds]

The board that oversees Mauna Kea now requires a Native Hawai'ian to have one seat so at least their voices aren't completely lost. The lease is also set to expire in 2032 and will be met with fierce requirements/conditions for renewal. I can imagine that no new telescopes full stop will be included with the eventual goal of decommissioning all remaining telescopes within a certain time frame.

[@Reinforce_Zwei]

It's honestly saddening that a "magic mountain" and the people who believe in that "magic" are even considered as credible voices against the proposed telescope. We point and laugh whenever highly religious christians or muslims try to "silence science" but when it comes to hawaiians? Gotta treat the poor dears with kid gloves and give them full control on what's built.

[@Trollificusv2]

@@littlekingofthebirds I can understand their bitterness, since the colonizers totally stole the idea of "looking up at the sky" from the Polynesians.

[@JMurph2015]

Feels like if the Native Hawaiians were just given a bit more respect and voice in the process, we could have come to a consensus where telescopes are "respectfully" constructed atop Mauna Kea in some fashion. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

[@Demonrifts]

@@Trollificusv2 Yeah, that's the part that is causing the tension.

[@Skootavision]

I now call it a toenail moon. You did this to me, Dr Becky, I *did not ask for this* 🤣 Now *that* is an influencer! Thanks for the ongoing content. You are an extremely trustworthy source, but you don't expect us to take your word for it, and talk us through data that non-experts couldn't make sense of let alone interpret. I don't comment on your videos often but I wanted to say thanks.

[@jacksonstarky8288]

"Congress is the opposite of progress." - NSF

[@Flox01000111]

capitalist society is opposite of progress

[@johngrundowski3632]

Agree- the work is done ,,,redundancy can be very helpfull- thier plan will just cost more!!!📡⛓️

[@FLPhotoCatcher]

And the natives...

[@owenmerrick2377]

Think of all the money being poured into our present day Vietnam...

[@yvindwestersund9720]

No matter where you build these telescopes the fact that the science foundation only gets some of the money to begin with and then has to provide updates on how it's doing is just nuts look at how that ended up regarding their shining new particle accelerator in Texas It would have been att least 3 times the size of LHC and it would have found the Higgs a lot faster But republican politicians decided 5hat No we need to save money in the budget so they killed the project Mind-you if they'd cut 0.001 % of the defense budget at the time they would have saved just as much money but they would have gotten a kickass collider to And now we're seeing the same thing again with the telescopes It's tragic that politicians that have shits for brains and do their biding in accordance to lobbyists in Washington DC cuts funding to projects that are good and necessary to advance our understanding of the universe But the thing that is most baffling to me is that they don't fully finance their projects from the start I'm Europe we decides to build a flagship telescopes and then when we've agreed on location size and other technical requirements and specifications we fully fund the project and tell them to get to work We want our telescopes NOW In the US on the other hand you idiots start out by planing the flat ground and how to make as much money from that before moving on to the next level of construction Then because there's so much more complicated for them and so much more money being wasted the congress is starting to look at it an saying you must get your wast down other wise we will not fund the next part of the project 😂😂 This is stupid having a project that is driven by the fact that if you don't do things right you will be punished for it and mind you it has never been done before so you can just look it up in the handbook It is a wonder that JWST ever got built it is probably because they had sunk sooooo much money in to it that it would look really stupid to stop funding it and not finish it And there were strong voices for just dropping it even after putting 9 billion dollars in to the project Imagine having JWST sitting in a wear house somewhere collecting dust instead of photons It would be a tragedy to all mankind and I'm telling you it was not all that far-off from happening because of the stupid way the US is allocating money for its science projects Where politics is more important than science Madness just saying Madness 😂😂 Just saying 🇳🇴

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

I've been waiting for this eclipse for years. I feel super privileged to live directly in the middle of the totality path.

[@vonkug]

For my last two eclipses I've used my 8inch telescope as a projector onto a screen through the eyepiece. 10/10 easiest observation no goggles needed.

[@timpointing]

You have to worry about all of that energy concentrated on the glass of the eyepiece. This can easily lead to that glass basically exploding.

[@Michael500ca]

I really stopped moving 25 years ago because my father was in the RCMP which had us moving around every 4-6 years. I would lose friends over and over until even had no friends. When I got to the place where I live now, I said never again. I have been here now for over 25 years and I won't leave at all. This is my home!

[@balaji-kartha]

As we learn more about all the stuff in the cosmos, our minds are going get blown many more times ! We haven't seen nothing yet! Just love it

[@chaosmarklar]

The last partial eclipse, we had a good cloud cover, transparent enough to take a cell phone picture of the eclipse clearly and thick enough clouds to not get any brightness

[@leonardhopper857]

For those of you that do welding and torch work. I found that a #12 welding lense stacked with a #3 torch lense does provide sufficient protection for viewing the eclipse and sunspot spotting. If it stills feels a little too bright, swap out one of the lenses for the next step higher. Enjoy!

[@vikingsoftpaw]

I was just going to suggest #12's

[@wellingtoncrescent2480]

Shade 14 is simpler, and safer. $10 for a sheet 4" x 6"

[@leonardhopper857]

@@wellingtoncrescent2480True, but back in the day, #12's were about as high as you could go and they were rare to find on the shelf. #13's and #14's were, pretty much special order and 3 to 5 weeks on delivery.

[@shubinternet]

Not ISO certified, and I'm not going to trust my eyes to them.

[@russellneal1263]

Just finished your book, couldn’t put it down. Good luck on your ongoing research in the field and funding prospects. As always, great video.

[@TammyJerkChicken]

Flying to Texas to see this my first eclipse ❤ praying for clear skys!

[@karlkutac1800]

You're enthusiasm is contagious 😊

[@Ishikawa01]

Thank you so much, you are currently my main source of Astro news as I have no time to read articles at the moment. I get so excited about all of this!

[@ginayoung130]

Dr. Becky coming through with all the best links! Thank you ❤️ I have been playing around with the hubble observations for a few weeks and I love it, gives me something fun to do on break at work!

[@CourtneyK87]

Those numbers are astounding. Is it possible this is the universe's first black hole?

[@deanakalova3063]

I live in a city in Ohio with the full eclipse and I couldn't be more excited🎉

[@DarenMiller-qj7bu]

I am directly in the path of the eclipse. I've been waiting for this day for about 8 years now lol.

[@theweapi]

If it absorbs 1 solar mass per day, that's about 4 Earth masses every second.

[@x15973]

Thank you for the Telescope links Doc! I love your raw enthusiasm for your chosen field!

[@benjaminbeard3736]

That site showing current Hubble/Webb observations is such a good idea for public engagement.

[@elly7385]

Aww, that's sad about Chandra. I'm really surprised by that--I mean, we're seeing stuff now like overlays combining imagery from JWST and Chandra, and it rocks. I don't understand why they're shutting this thing down. This is the best time in history for Chandra to get science done because there's so much more to correlate its observations with.

[@Snowflake-id4fw]

The light on your new set is really lovely...bright but diffuse. You must be very happy with it.

[@carltontweedle5724]

Being a ex merchant seamen I loved going out on deck and just look up. I now live in Scotland taking my dog a walk every night look up see bolt this winter has been bad for cloud, well mainly rain so miss the sky at night.

[@user-li7ec3fg6h]

As always, absolutely informative and entertaining. Great!

[@PopeLando]

Your talk about the quasar and the spectral signatures of the spiraling materials was interrupted by the Lloyds Bank advert scored by Florence+The Machine singing... "Spectrum". Which includes star-like lyrics such as "Every body we illuminate/ We are shining..."

[@martensjd]

The colander idea is cool. Also often deciduous trees will do the same thing. Look on the ground at the light passing through the leafs.

[@joyl7842]

An accretion-disk bigger than the distance to our nearest neighboring star! That's insane.

[@GK49245]

We have 4 min 1 sec totality at our house west of Austin, TX. Thanks for another rich content Night Sky News.

[@TomLeg]

My eclipse glasses (free from the Guelph, Ontario, Canada library) say not to use after three years ... not sure if that's about scratches, or destructive chemistry.

[@user-Aaron-]

Interesting, didn't realize they might have expiry dates.

[@iambiggus]

Essentially typical sunlight damage to the materials making up the protective layers. Especially on cheaper, disposable glasses.

[@TomLeg]

@@iambiggus Personally, after April, I will have my glasses indoors, not near windows. But anyways ....

[@blackthorne-rose]

YAY! Your enthusiasm is infectious!

[@patchvonbraun]

Feverishly working to get our radio observatory able to track again after 27 years. The target is to be able to track the sun on April 8th. Wish us luck!

[@smeeself]

Good luck. 👍

[@kindlin]

Who? What? Huh? Moar eenfo plx

[@robertfarrow4256]

OMG, Dr. Becky! YOU are the most energetic force on KZbin, Big Hugs.

[@jim.franklin]

Great News cast as usual Becky - loving the Bloopers -

[@elibot]

If or when someone build a bigger telescope than the ELT, I want it to be called the Bonkers Big Telescope

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

There was a (not implemented) proposal for an Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL), also a pretty good name. :-)

[@RamBam3000]

The stats on that quasar are truly insane. A stellar mass per day? *headasplode*

[@KoRntech]

4:10 im excited, last time i had to drive three states in 2017, this time I just need to walk outside my home, BUT its Ohio and lake effect clouds have a knack of showing up at the worst time.

[@1.4142]

Pons Brooks has been a treat

[@michaelferron4777]

I live in McKinney TX just north of the center of the total ellipse .

[@zburnham]

The set looks fine. Except for a little echo in the audio you'd not know it wasn't a "regular" setup.

[@simon1546]

Your enthusiasm makes me want to discover more about astrophysics, then I look at it and realise how complicated it is, then appreciate you even more for managing to break that down for us.

[@sarasheppard8242]

4:42 speaking of the 2017 eclipse, I didn't have any eclipse glasses so when the sky went dark, I used the upper edge of the building I was at to peek at the event, pulling away the moment I noticed the brightness picking up. Probably not the recommended way, but it was definitely cool to see first-hand

[@ronprince1478]

😊👍😎 Thanks from southern Hemisphere.

[@PaulGAckerman]

I am so psyched for the eclipse! I live in a suburb of Buffalo, NY. My house is a quarter mile north of the centerline.

[@Rubrickety]

The lighting in the new space is very nice. 👍

[@timpointing]

Her new "space news space"? 😅

[@TheRealPaulMarshall]

The last "pinhole camera" I made was for the transit of Venus. It consisted of my apartment and a mirror covered by a sheet of paper with a hole in (about two centimeters across) attached to a post in the garden visible from the back window. Worked a treat.

[@joen0411]

Is the growth rate typical for black holes that long ago or is it faster compared to other black holes at that time?

[@Jeeptalkshow]

Years ago there was a TRS-80 computer game, Asylum that if you looked up a piano would fall on you. A cautionary tale! ;)

[@joshuacanny4858]

Great video. Thank you.

[@michaelsnow4735]

I'd give my hind teeth to witness such a spectacular. I've only ever experienced one in my life 😢.

[@thirstfast1025]

Just got my JWST tee! Absolutely love it! Cheers Dr. Becky!

[@AMVH2012]

I'm excited, thank you for putting up that time and date website information. I thought I was going to have to go out to the middle of nowhere but I just have to go to the other side of town.

[@saab0009]

Love and appreciate your work, Dr. Becky, thank you so much 💫

[@theshowmanuk]

Fantastic video, thanks Becky !

[@billybaloney7769]

Come over to Cornwall Ontario Canada and you can hang out here to watch the Eclipse, have room for 3-4 peeps to stay over !!!

[@aldentindall9688]

The fact that the US has declined to the level of defunding NASA is horrendous. What are we doing. When will we ever learn?

[@charliem989]

The myth of the national debt has done so much damage. I agree, it kills me to see this happening.

[@olasek7972]

How about the rest of the world start paying its fair share, where is wealthy Europe in this respect? NASA’s budget is still significantly larger than ESA’s budget. Something very wrong with this picture.

[@TimJCOOL-ng8pu]

Nations that invest in technology do better than those that don't. By the by Charliem it is not a myth. Right now inflation starts at the top. Elon Musk wanted 54 billion dollars for running tesla. Ridiculous!!!!!!! (Edit: wow how rambling.)

[@dr4d1s]

​@@olasek7972How about we worry about our own problems and not what the rest of the world is or isn't doing? We have plenty of money to fund NASA if we just took a 0 or 2 out of the Military's budget. Hell, I am sure NASA can do great things with just the money the military has lost and can't account for.

[@olasek7972]

@@dr4d1s I am European so I do worry what WE in Europe do - far behind the US spending in space sciences.

[@adrianaspalinky1986]

I went to R.I. to see Chris Lintott talk yesterday 😁, he's Amazing

[@JavSusLar]

1:46 at greatest elongation, the right angle is at the inner planet, not at the sun.

[@kindlin]

Ah, true. Good point.

[@zacrintoul]

I mean technically it would be half way between, when the two objects are equidistance from earth. That gives you the largest angle between them.

[@kindlin]

@@zacrintoul What do you mean by equidistant? As they are in separate orbits, their distances to the sun will never be equal. And you can't be halfway between something that can't happen. No, Jav is correct.

[@zacrintoul]

@@kindlin I am wrong, but this is what I was thinking. Equidistant was equidistance from earth. Aka forming an isosceles triangle with earth. Which mathematically would have the greatest angle if we assume the distance between the two legs... (Which in our case is the orbital distance of the planet) is the same in all three scenarios.

[@zacrintoul]

@@kindlinMy problem is I ignored the fact that earth sun distance is fixed. So in reality the greatest angle will be when earth to planet alignment is tangential to the orbit. (Easy to understand if you draw the earth the sun and a planet with a circular orbit and are given a straight edge) Aka the angle between earth planet and sun make a 90 deg angle as you pointed out correctly. Only if there were two equal mass bodies orbiting each other (double inner stars in a system) would my initial statement be correct.

[@confuseatronica]

Every couple years I check if there's any new planetarium apps that have come out that beat Stellarium. There never is.

[@John.0z]

I am still quite pleased that I have positively identified Mercury in the sky. For year I had missed it, but one night it was in a row with Venus and the moon. 😁

[@keithrosenberg5486]

We are lucky! We live near Death Valley and we can easily drive to where it is dark out here!

[@TheCervelo100]

Getting a code 500 error on your links to the Hubble and JWST observation links , great episode

[@PyroRob69]

I always look forward to your videos.

[@johngrundowski3632]

Thanks, great info.Best to your new location.From north east u.s.

[@RichardIresonMusician]

I'm yet to see a "proper" total solar eclipse. I was in Cornwall for the total eclipse in 1999 but was clouded out. However, the effect all that cloud and haze created is something I will never forget. We were looking out to sea and, as totality neared, an ominous looking veil of dark approached as the umbra sped towards us. It was awe inspiring and disturbing at the same time!

[@johnpublicprofile6261]

I was there as well, at a beach near Falmouth.

[@RichardIresonMusician]

@@johnpublicprofile6261 I was near St.Just.

[@BabyMakR]

We had a partial eclipse here in Queensland last year and My then 7 year old son and I made a pinhole cameras to look at it with. Complete with a box with cloth to go over the head. He enjoyed making the camera more than he did looking at the eclipse. I also borrowed a set of welding goggles from a friend but he prefered to look through his camera.

[@ashraile]

I happen to be in Austin on the 8th of April. Great and uncanny timing, never seen a total solar eclipse before.

[@jessicamorgan3073]

Thanks Dr. Becky 😊

[@samedwards6683]

Thanks so much for creating and sharing this educational and entertaining video.

[@TheErichill]

For the April eclipse, Stellarium shows P12/Pons-Brooks can fit within a full-frame camera's field of view with a 50mm lens. Jupiter can just be squeezed in at the focal length. It would be nice if the comet is bright enough to catch with a reasonably exposed corona, but there's always stacking as a fall back.

[@jojojojo2529]

Thank You, Dr. Becky 🎇

[@carolfranklin758]

Thanks!

[@vsikifi]

Is that 270 solar masses per year counted using our year or a year of time at the quasar? Objects very far away are seen as kind of slow motion because the distance between the object and us is growing at significant fraction of the speed of light due to the expansion of the universe, so two photons that started their journey one year apart hit out telescope more than one year apart because the later photon had longer way to travel. This also means that the quasar is even brighter than it looks like because this slowing effect also dims it as the light we receive in some unit of time was emitted in a shorter timespan. Oh - and that right triangle for the greatest eastern elongation of Mercury was drawn incorrectly. The right angle should be at Mercury, not the Sun!

[@joepalmer1594]

The advantages of a human on-site has been repeatedly recognized. When the experiment says 1+1=2.017834 when you were expecting something else, the human on-site can change the experiment to see if those results are repeatable. And then set up the next step to see why it came back with that answer. It was why we sent a geologist (selenologist?) to the Moon the last time

[@xborak2]

The lightning in this setup is so good!

[@happyhome41]

Wonderful episode. Thank you.

[@chesterbaumgart7381]

LOVE your content, thank you.

[@jwag82]

A quasar growing so crazy fast it should be called a Crazar.

[@IanZainea1990]

17:59 is there a reason (aside from light pollution) they don't choose an option in like. BFE Nevada for large telescopes? Or Utah or Wyoming. Somewhere in the Rockies is my point. Earthquakes?

[@rwarren58]

We have a billboard that is counting down till the eclipse. We get 45 % coverage where i live

[@JaccovanSchaik]

Love the new decor!

[@samuela-aegisdottir]

Physicists: "We have this theory about starts that are so heavy that they emit no light. We call them black holes because they are dark." Astronomers: "What are those extremely bright object everywhere in the sky?"

[@coryvaillancourt]

Dr.becky, I saw something from beachman, talking about how we may live within a black hole , kinda made sense

[@ayushsinha7300]

“Let us talk about something cheerier now - like the fastest growing Supermassive Black Hole that we’ve ever found” - this is why I love this channel! The love she has for astronomy is so evident!