astrosoundbites.bsky.social

In this latest ep, we explore the theme of fields in astronomy, from gravitational and magnetic fields to ones in some unusual units (🦅™️). Cole takes us on a mythological tour of Lagrange points, and Cormac guides us through the climates of inflated exoplanets. 🔭

astrosoundbites.com/2026/03/02/e...

Apep is a triple star system containing a Wolf–Rayet binary and a hot supergiant, located in the constellation of Norma. This episode is about binary systems, so don't tell anyone. Image Credit: By NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Y. Han (Caltech), R. White (Macquarie University), A. Pagan (STScI), CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=178747740

For valentines’ day, we explore the dating lives of by looking at astrophysics's romantic couples: binary systems! Immediately ruining this theme, Shashank covers some messy breakups while Cormac shows how even stars’ relationships involve some give and take. 🔭
astrosoundbites.com/2026/02/07/e...

Want to hear about some of the cool science our authors are doing at #AAS247? Two of our authors are giving talks today!

Kicking us off at 10:10 AM in room 222c is Skylar Grayson ( @skylargrayson.bsky.social ) with her dissertation talk! 🔭

https://astrosoundbites.com/2025/12/08/episode-114-a-world-of-disc-overy/

This ep we dive into disks and, gasp, revisit intro physics concepts. Wait don't leave! Cole explores a misbehaving protoplanetary disk while Cormac shows how radiation can hinder the birth of planets. We then visit beefier disks around galaxies and black holes. 🔭
astrosoundbites.com/2025/12/08/e...

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons This image of Centaurus A shows a spectacular new view of a supermassive black hole's power. Jets and lobes powered by the central black hole in this nearby galaxy are shown by submillimeter data (colored orange) from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile and X-ray data (colored blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Visible light data from the Wide Field Imager on the Max-Planck/ESO 2.2 m telescope, also located in Chile, shows the dust lane in the galaxy and background stars. The X-ray jet in the upper left extends for about 13,000 light years away from the black hole. The APEX data shows that material in the jet is travelling at about half the speed of light.

In today’s ep, we celebrate our glorious return from hiatus by tackling black holes in weird places. Shashank covers a lot of acronyms for BHs on top of other BHs, while Cormac does his 2nd Astrobite with a sausage in the title, establishing a worrying precedent.
astrosoundbites.com/2025/11/21/e...

Image Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-great-observatories-weigh-massive-young-galaxy-cluster/

Today we crack open Young Massive (Stellar) Clusters! Shashank shares a recipe for cooking up YMCs via computational collision, Lucia peeks at their emergence from dust-embedded embryonic environs, and we wrap up by talking about Wittgenstein, for some reason. 🔭
astrosoundbites.com/2025/08/30/e...

The one thing better than studying the hugest compact objects is smashing them together! This time, we cover black hole mergers and what they reveal about our universe. Lucia explores some specific spins and Cole makes Shashank talk about cosmology again. 🔭

astrosoundbites.com/2025/08/16/e...

This week Shashank, Cormac and Cole talk Bayesian statistics. Cole brings up a flashy new paper about a potential biosignature on an exoplanet and Cormac counters with some rebuttals. Along the way, we discuss probabilities, priors, likelihoods and posteriors! 🔭

astrosoundbites.com/2025/08/03/e...

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons An exaggerated size image of the possible intermediate mass black hole in Omega Centauri

This week we cover the misunderstood middle child of astrophysics: Intermediate Mass Black Holes! Cole covers their globular cluster gains, Cormac picks a precessing pair, and Lucia really abuses her ability to add sound effects to our recording.

astrosoundbites.com/2025/07/19/e...

This week, Lucia, Cormac, and Shashank dive into the depth of the Mediterranean Sea and journey to the icy desert of Antarctica to discover more about neutrinos.

Photo: first detection of a neutrino in a bubble chamber (1970).

astrosoundbites.com/2025/07/05/e...

The more things change, the more they, uh, change. This ep covers events changing our night sky view. Cormac presents a star bullying a black hole accretion disc, Shashank, a persnickety pulsar, and Cole gets his pulsar music rant cut for time.

astrosoundbites.com/2025/06/21/1...

🔭 #astronomy

An image of a bright point of reddish light surrounded by 6 emanating rays of light with an image of a woman faintly superimposed

In this episode, we say goodbye to one of our beloved hosts, Sabrina Berger. We look at the depths and breadths of Sabrina’s research experience, ask about her experience in 3 different countries and her advice for future grad students!

astrosoundbites.com/2025/06/12/e...

🔭 #astronomy

The NASA Logo at Goddard Space Flight Center. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons.

In this episode, the (domestic) American sector of Astro[sound]bites covers the recent proposed budget cuts to NASA, the largest in its history. We cover the downsides that these cuts would have for science and the economy, and what you can do to speak out. 🔭
astrosoundbites.com/2025/05/24/e...

We are a graduate student run podcast that talks about modern astrophysics research and astronomy outreach. We have 105 episodes at time of writing and we are the sister podcast to the Astrobites website, a few of us volunteer there as well!

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Hanny's Voorwerp and IC 2497 taken by Wide Field Camera 3 of the Hubble Space Telescope. Hanny's Voorwerp (Dutch for "Hanny's object") was discovered in 2007 by Dutch schoolteacher and citizen scientist Hanny van Arkel.

In this week's episode, Cormac, Cole and Lucia catch you up with all things Citizen Science. From scouting clumps to finding a new dwarf galaxy, we perambulate around some participatory projects. astrosoundbites.com/2025/05/10/e...

Hubble image of the Crab Nebula

Stellar deaths can be rather violent - and sometimes premature. This week we discuss tidal disruption events and their connection extreme coronal lines. And we take a look at a superstar supernova remnant: the Crab Nebula. astrosoundbites.com/2025/04/27/e...

An Einstein Ring. Gravitational lensing causes light from a distant galaxy to be warped by a closer galaxy. Studying the amount of gravitational lensing that we can see versus how much we should expect is a great tool for cosmologists trying to understand the origins and fate of our universe. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

This week we talk about the big boy on cosmology campus: LCDM. What can't this model explain about the universe? Shashank gives a tour through galaxies' dark matter hearts and Cormac shows how 1500 (ish? Unclear on this one) supernovae may hint at a flaw in LCDM.
astrosoundbites.com/2025/04/12/e...

Episode 102: Per-severance Ad Astra astro[sound]bites · Episode 102: Per-severance Ad Astra 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’…

If you’ve ever wondered how your favourite telescope, rover or probe made it into space, then wonder no more! From 5G space junk to magnetic masses, we lift the lid on the lifecycle of space missions by peering into a preponderance of proposals.

astrosoundbites.com/2025/03/29/e...

Space weather isn't just solar storms! In this episode, we explore extreme temperatures in space, Venus' climate, galactic cold fronts, and the most underrated parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

astrosoundbites.com/2025/03/17/e...

A collage of all 10 of our current and alumni hosts! Top: Cole Meldorf, Alex Gagliano, Kiersten Boley Middle: Malena Rice, Will Saunders Bottom: Shashank Dholakia, Lucia Härer, Cormac Larkin, Sabrina Berger

A[S]B turns 100! For our ten squared-th ep, we tour astrophysics extremes: the heaviest and lightest, fastest and slowest, brightest and dimmest. To help us, we meet up with old friends to talk dark matter, exoplanets, and how ridiculously long a Ph.D. takes.
astrosoundbites.com/2025/01/12/e...