Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
AD | Join me in reading Nautilus in 2025, by heading to joinnautilus.com/drbecky you can get 15% off a membership to Nautilus, a perfect new years treat for any science enthusiast. | Occasionally you see an image from the Hubble Space Telescope that absolutely blows you away - and this month we got just that with this image of what’s been dubbed the “Bullseye galaxy” with nine, maybe even 10 rings of stars around it. Because even though we see lots of galaxies with rings, maybe even two rings or three rings, some that are a bit messy and some that are so perfectly aligned its hard to believe they’re real. But we have never before seen a ring galaxy with more than 3 rings, until now with this galaxy LEDA 1313424, and what’s more, is that Pasha and collaborators, who reported this discovery, were actually able to test our predictions for how these rings of stars form in galaxies when two galaxies collide, and use it to explain the unsolved mystery of low surface brightness galaxies…
For more information on the Dragonfly telescope - dragonflytelescope.org
Press release on LEDA 1313424 discovery - https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-006
Pasha et al. (2025) - iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad9f5c/pdf
Struck (2010) - arxiv.org/pdf/0912.4474
Danieli et al. (2020) - arxiv.org/pdf/1910.14045
Khoperskov et al. (2014) - arxiv.org/pdf/1404.1247
00:00 Introduction
01:34 AD - Nautilus
02:53 Why we care about ring galaxies
05:24 How this 10 ring galaxy was found
08:24 Testing our ideas for how rings form in galaxy collisions
13:46 Solving the mystery of low surface brightness galaxies
15:51 Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: fiverr.com/mgs_editing
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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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🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
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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
AD | Join me in reading Nautilus in 2025, by heading to joinnautilus.com/drbecky you can get 15% off a membership to Nautilus, a perfect new years treat for any science enthusiast. | Occasionally you see an image from the Hubble Space Telescope that absolutely blows you away - and this month we got just that with this image of what’s been dubbed the “Bullseye galaxy” with nine, maybe even 10 rings of stars around it. Because even though we see lots of galaxies with rings, maybe even two rings or three rings, some that are a bit messy and some that are so perfectly aligned its hard to believe they’re real. But we have never before seen a ring galaxy with more than 3 rings, until now with this galaxy LEDA 1313424, and what’s more, is that Pasha and collaborators, who reported this discovery, were actually able to test our predictions for how these rings of stars form in galaxies when two galaxies collide, and use it to explain the unsolved mystery of low surface brightness galaxies…
For more information on the Dragonfly telescope - dragonflytelescope.org
Press release on LEDA 1313424 discovery - https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-006
Pasha et al. (2025) - iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad9f5c/pdf
Struck (2010) - arxiv.org/pdf/0912.4474
Danieli et al. (2020) - arxiv.org/pdf/1910.14045
Khoperskov et al. (2014) - arxiv.org/pdf/1404.1247
00:00 Introduction
01:34 AD - Nautilus
02:53 Why we care about ring galaxies
05:24 How this 10 ring galaxy was found
08:24 Testing our ideas for how rings form in galaxy collisions
13:46 Solving the mystery of low surface brightness galaxies
15:51 Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: fiverr.com/mgs_editing
---
📚 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
---
👕 My new merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): 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.
drbecky.uk.com
