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PODCAST

astro[sound]bites

astrosoundbites

Astrobites for your ears. Three grad students bring you cutting-edge research findings in astronomy and connect the dots between diverse subfields.

science astronomy

All Episodes

7:17

Episode 112.5: Extremely Looming Trouble?

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/09/13

In today’s mini-episode, Cormac highlights how a proposed industrial megaproject threatens the pristine observing conditions at Paranal Observatory - home of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, as well as the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope and Cherenkov Telescope Array South facilities. We will also be taking our summer break a little later than usual - see you in a few weeks!Roel’s

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48:27

Episode 112: It’s not fun to be in a YMC, eh?

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/08/30

Episode 112: It’s not fun to be in a YMC, eh?Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025 In today’s episode, Cormac, Shashank and Lucia come together to crack open the craziness inside Young Massive (Stellar) Clusters - some of the most exciting neighbourhoods in our Universe. They’re a very hot topic at the moment, and not just because of their intense radiation - they host the majority of massive stars, and ancient YMCs might be the ancestors of the globular

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54:07

Episode 111: Mergers for Nothing and Your Chirps for...

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/08/16

The only thing better than studying the largest compact objects in the universe is smashing them together. In this episode, Lucia, Shashank, and Cole cover binary black hole mergers and what these violent events can tell us about our universe! Lucia talks us through some mergers' specific spins and Cole forces Shashank to talk about cosmology again. Astrobites: https://astrobites.org/2025/06/27/pisngap_gws_flexible_models/ https://astrobites.org/2025/07/17/lss-bbhgw-expansionrate/ Space

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01:17:18

Episode 110: Bayesian Biosignatures

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/08/03

Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025 This week, Shashank, Cole and Cormac discuss a concept that has come up on many an ASB episode past: Bayesian statistics. They start by trying to wrap our heads around what a probability really means. Cole introduces us to a recent and attention-grabbing paper on a potential biosignature in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, with lots of statistics along the way. Then, Cormac brings up some counterpoints to this detection

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44:20

Episode 109: Big, Small and In-Between

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/07/19

Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025This week, Lucia, Cole and Cormac discuss cosmic sandwich kids: intermediate mass black holes. Where are they hiding? How do they form? And can they grow up to become supermassive black holes? To answer questions like these, we take a look at globular cluster simulations and a famous gravitational wave event: GW190521. The discussion takes us to alien civilisations in the far, far future. From Globs to Gravitational Waves: A

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41:17

Episode 108: 2000 Meters Under The Mediterranean

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/07/05

This week, Lucia, Cormac, and Shashank dive into the depth of the Mediterranean Sea to discover more about the most energetic neutrino measured to date, which had an energy of a whooping 120 PeV! They then pay a visit to the South Pole to discuss what the ICECUBE neutrino observatory can tell us about the proton fraction of cosmic rays at the highest energies. Casting a wide (KM3)NeT for a record-breaking neutrino https://astrobites.org/2025/05/29/km3net-neutrino Kachow! Three high energy neutrinos

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01:07:40

Episode 107: Things That Go Blip in the Night

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/06/21

The more things change, the more they, uh, change. This episode Cole, Shashank, and Cormac cover the exciting events that change what we see on the night sky. Ancient astronomers tracked the motions of the planets and the arrival of “guest stars” (supernovae), and nowadays we’re lucky enough to see some really wild and energetic events. Cormac gives us a view into what happens when a star punches through a black hole’s accretion disc, Shashank shows us a particularly persnickety pulsar, and Cole

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01:35:45

Episode 106: Sabrina’s Super Sad Sendoff

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/06/12

In this episode, we say goodbye to one of our beloved hosts, Sabrina Berger. We take a voyage through the depths and breadths of Sabrina’s research experience. Cole tells us how Sabrina investigates JWST’s ability to estimate the masses of galaxies through the glare of their quasars, and Lucia tells us how Sabrina used navigation satellites to calibrate radio telescopes. In between, we quiz Sabrina on her own ASB episodes and finish with Sabrina’s experience in 3 different countries and Sabrina’s

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09:28

Episode 105.5: NASA Needs Your Help!

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/05/24

In this episode, the (domestic) American sector of Astro[sound]bites covers the recent proposed budget cuts to NASA, the largest in NASA’s entire history. We cover the downsides that these cuts would have for science and the economy, and what you can do to speak out.How to reach out: Find your representative: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative AAS Letter Writing Guidelines for

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49:08

Episode 105: Citizen Brain

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/05/10

In today’s episode, Cormac, Cole and Lucia catch you up with all things Citizen Science. In the epoch of ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini (no, not the telescope), it’s easy to forget about the 20 Watt computer you’re using to read this sentence. Yes, even YOU can contribute to cutting-edge astronomical research, as we present two examples of cosmic crowdfunding in action. Cole convinces us that nearby galaxies need some Clump Scouts, and Lucia shows us how volunteers have been the (tur)key to finding a new

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44:57

Episode 104: Star Destroyers

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/04/27

That stars die will be old news for most listeners. But sometimes, stars don’t just die, they get ripped apart by supermassive black holes. Cormac, Cole and Lucia discuss these so-called tidal disruption events. Specifically, how these events are connected to X-ray absorption features called extreme coronal lines. The hosts also take a look at one of the true superstars of supernova remnants: the Crab Nebula. As it turns out, studying the ejecta can give clues about the pulsar at the heart of the

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56:48

Episode 103: Lambasting Lambda CDM

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/04/12

Shoot, someone made the mistake of letting Cole pick the episode topic. In this episode, Cole, Cormac, and Shashank talk about the big boy on cosmology campus: Lambda CDM. This model has gotten a bit too big for its britches we think: what are the things about the universe that this model can’t explain? Shashank gives us a tour through the dark matter hearts of galaxies which don’t match up with cosmological predictions and Cormac shows us how 1500 (ish? We’re not clear on this one.) supernovae

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01:03:55

Episode 102: Per-severance Ad Astra

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/03/29

In this episode, Cormac, Lucia and Cole lift the lid on the lifecycle of space missions by peering into a preponderance of proposals. If you’ve ever wondered how your favourite telescope, rover or probe made it into space, then wonder no more. Lucia brings us a novel way to track potentially hazardous space junk using 5G, while Cole teases us with some magnetic results from the LISA Pathfinder mission. We also discuss our favourite proposed space missions, and debate the right balance between risk

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57:05

Episode 101: Weather Woes

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/03/17

Episode 101: Weather WoesIn this episode, we take a dive into weather phenomena in space. Shashank, Cormac and Lucia discuss what the terms hot and cold mean in space and the temperature ranges we tend to see outside the Solar System and the galaxy. Then, Cormac tells us about the climate on Venus, and Lucia delves into cold fronts between galaxies. Finally, we round off with some hot takes about the most underrated parts of the electromagnetic spectrum in

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01:25:39

Episode 100: Be There or Be Ten Squared

astro[sound]bites ·

2025/01/12

Astrobites turns 100! For our ten squared-th episode we take a tour of all of the extremes of astrophysics: the heaviest and the lightest, the fastest and the slowest, the brightest and dimmest. In doing so, Shashank covers an astrobite on itty bitty particles that pack a big punch, Lucia talks about medium-ish galaxies and their black hole hearts, and Cormac panics about the danger of violent kilonovae. To help us celebrate, we meet up with some old friends to discuss dark matter, exoplanets, and

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56:05

Episode 99: The Grand Finale

astro[sound]bites ·

2024/12/01

Danger - explosive! This week’s episode is all about supernovae. These star-ripping, neutrino spewing explosions are important to various fields of astrophysics. Cormac, Cole, and Lucia discuss just when stars actually go supernova. And also, whether we can use gravitational waves to tell which compact object is left behind. Everybody gets to share their favourite supernova science and (as we all love to do) to complain about how much astronomers love old, inconsistent nomenclature. Enjoy! Intro

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57:57

Episode 98: When PIGS Fly

astro[sound]bites ·

2024/11/16

In this episode, Cormac, Shashank and Cole dig deep into Galactic Archaeology as we look into the past of our Milky Way. Cole brings us a catastrophic computational collision, while Shashank gives us the low-down on low-metallicity, and we see just how the (Gaia) sausage gets made. We also discuss the rights, wrongs and funnies of Astronomers trying to name things, and the diverse design philosophies behind some of our favourite observational

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52:16

Episode 97: Cosmic Time Machines

astro[sound]bites ·

2024/10/13

In this episode, Shashank, Cole and Lucia bend time in their debut podcast together as we talk about the various ways astronomy is like time travel. Lucia gives us a peek into the past with the storied supernova Cas A, while Cole brings us on a nostalgic quest into gravitational wave memory. We hope you enjoy time traveling with us!Astrobites: https://astrobites.org/2024/08/26/cas_a_jwst/ https://astrobites.org/2024/08/28/gwmem/ Space

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57:21

Episode 96: kiErsten’s Exoplanetary Elemental Exit...

astro[sound]bites ·

2024/07/21

This episode marks Kiersten’s last astro[sound]bites episode (and also side note – we’re posting this on her birthday!). To recognize Kiersten for her incredible time as a co-host, we take a journey through her academic paper trail by discussing her papers on how magma and metallicities affect how we think about exoplanetary formation and observations. Then we take a deep dive into Kiersten’s time as a co-host and graduate student including her stance on “publish or perish” and what she’s most

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44:44

Episode 95: IMPReSsive Research

astro[sound]bites ·

2024/07/13

In this week's episode, we take you on a two-part journey to Europe! First, Lucia and Cormac guide you through the differences of graduate programs in Europe and the US. Then, we jump into a series of mini-interviews with fellow PhD students about their research. We journey through a wide range of topics, including black holes big and smalls, the powerful winds of massive stars, and much more. If you would like to learn more about any of these topics, check out the links below! The mini-interviews

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122 results

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