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/