How can astronomers study something that nobody has ever seen? In this episode, we switch to the dark side to shine a light on one of the biggest questions in all of astrophysics: the nature of dark matter. Malena teaches us how dark matter helps galaxy clusters glow up, and Will takes a journey to the center of the Earth to find prehistoric prints from a big WIMP. Plus, Alex brings us our most romantic space sound yet. 




Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2019/02/12


https://astrobites.org/2018/06/19





Space sound: https://www.system-sounds.com/heartbeat-stars/

Credits: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

Credit: SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo & A. Santaguida). Data recorded by Kepler and accessed from MAST.

Episode 36: A Dance with Dark Matter

Billions of years before Van Gogh put paint to canvas and immortalized them forever, the stars in the sky were nothing more than an intricate tangle of magnetic fields and swirling gas. Turn the clock back with us as we learn about the physics of these protostellar systems! Northwestern/CIERA postdoctoral associate Erin G. Cox teaches us about the polarization patterns of Class 0 and Class I systems, and Will gets all turbulated as he discovers how HII regions might drive star formation.




Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2021/05/05/inflating-hii-regions-cause-star-formation-to-pop/


https://astrobites.org/2020/08/05/protostar-polarization/





Erin’s website: 

https://sites.northwestern.edu/eringcox/





Space sound: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8qdJsLqR7w


Credit: System Sounds (M. Russo & A. Santaguida) and NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand

Episode 39: Polarizing Protostars

It’s time to talk radio on the radio! In this episode, we explore some of the research beaming out of the world's largest fully steerable radio dish -- the Green Bank Telescope (GBT)! We hear from Brenne Gregory, a Scientific Data Analyst at GBT, about her trek from the rolling hills of Scotland to the heart of the Allegheny Mountains. Will keeps his finger on the pulse of a pair of neutron stars, and Alex listens for a lawn mower at the heart of the Crab Nebula.

Astrobite: 
https://astrobites.org/2021/08/21/double-neutron-star-trouble/

Space Sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5BQV3WX80E

Green Bank REU and Internship page:
http://greenbankobservatory.org/about/careers/

Episode 45: Jamming with the GBT

In this episode, Sabrina teaches Will gamer lingo and the gang applies it to astronomy. Alex discusses a class of super-charged supernovae with bumpy and clumpy physics, and Sabrina shows us how to use pulsars to upgrade our data security (once we figure out how to uninstall Norton Antivirus).   

Then we discuss whether objects in the universe really can be OP (overpowered) and Alex begins to question if he ever really understood the definition (spoiler: he didn’t).

Astrobites: 
https://astrobites.org/2022/02/05/slsne-show-bumps-and-wiggles-at-late-times/
https://astrobites.org/2022/03/03/pulsars-the-key-to-secure-encryption/

Space sound: https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2022/sgra/animations.html#audio
Sonification Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida);
Image Credit: Radio: EHT Collaboration; X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO); Infrared (NASA/HST/STScI)

Episode 56: Overpowered in the Universe

This episode is all about magnetic fields because we couldn’t stay away from such a polarizing topic! Alex takes us on a journey to the center of a star where we find how intense its magnetic field actually is. Along the way, Kiersten brings up a blast from the past with a sonification that had its own record release. To wrap up, Sabrina tells how we can use radio waves to find an exoplanet with a magnetic field because cosmic rays and solar winds don’t sound like a pleasant time for us humans. 

Astrobites:
https://astrobites.org/2022/07/19/
https://astrobites.org/2022/09/08/

Space sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5MHsnc67yw

Episode 66:  B-Field Bonanza

Did you know that half of our astro[sound]bites co-hosts went to community college? We’re here to talk about our experiences and work towards breaking the stigma! This is our first episode in this two part series which features Kiersten’s trajectory from community college into a brilliant exoplanet scientist. Next, Alex interviews Dra. Natalie Nicole Sanchez, an NSF MPS-Ascend postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Observatories and Caltech, whose interest in astrophysics was sparked while studying art at community college. Join us on a whirlwind tour of engineering, love affairs, and artistic endeavors - and stay tuned for an associated astrobites post!

Link to Dra. Sanchez’s twitter: https://twitter.com/the_n_nicole

Episode 67: Breaking the Stigma Around Community College Part I

Episode 68: Breaking the Stigma Around Community College Part II

In our second episode taking another in-depth look into community college, we start off by hearing about Sabrina’s experiences. She tells us about her journey from attending high school abroad to starting community college. Kiersten also interviews, Prof. Andria Schwortz, a physics and astronomy professor at Quinsigamond Community College. Join us on an adventure to Europe, community college, and with a second love story sprinkled in. Don’t forget to check out our associated astrobites beyond post!

Prof. Andria Schwortz twitter: https://twitter.com/aschwortz

Equity image link: https://healthcity.bmc.org/policy-and-industry/health-equity-vs-health-equality-whats-difference

Episode 68: Breaking the Stigma Around Community College Part II

In celebration of the a-bit-over-a-week after St. Patrick’s (definitely not Patty’s) Day, we bring you another Ireland-related episode. Due to historically unsupported stereotypes about the Irish being lucky, we bring you two astrobites busting with cosmic coincidences and a dash of luck. Kiersten tells about a plucky planet that avoided a hangry host star,  while Will brings us yet another binary black hole bonanza. Cormac shares a bit of an infamous Irish space sound that you could call cosmic comic relief.  In the spirit of luck, we talk about the role of luck in our own journeys to space and in the field of astronomy as a whole.

This week’s “space sound” - https://www.tiktok.com/@ladbibleireland/video/7278649311334780192?lang=en

Episode 88: The Luck of the Irish

We've reached a pivotal moment for astro[sound]bites: the podcast era where each of the original co-hosts has been replaced. Just like the Ship of Theseus, we ask: Is astro[sound]bites still the same show, even though all its original components have been replaced? We believe it is, and we’re excited about its continued evolution.

In this episode, we’re thrilled to introduce the three new astro[sound]bites co-hosts: Shashank, Cole, and Lucia. They'll be joining us in the next few months, and we’ll discuss what each is excited about for the future of the show. Stay tuned for an exciting new chapter as the new co-hosts take over steering the ship!

Episode 92.5: The Ship of 3-seus

In 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 astrophysics!

Astrobites:
https://astrobites.org/2024/12/24/its-getting-hot-in-here-so-take-off-all-your-h2o/
https://astrobites.org/2024/11/11/cold-front-outside/

Space sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYXAdXf5gWU

Episode 101: Weather Woes

Episode 105: Citizen Brain

Episode 105.5: NASA Needs Your Help!

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 advice for future grad students!

Arxiv links: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.06144
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12130

Episode 106: Sabrina’s Super Sad Sendoff

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 gets his twenty minute monologue on modern classical music cut for time. 

Astrobites:
This Pulsar Has Mood Swings
https://astrobites.org/2025/05/21/this-pulsar-has-mood-swings/

X-treme X-rays in an X-tra young system
https://astrobites.org/2025/04/16/x-treme-x-rays-in-an-x-tra-young-system/

Space Sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_3RgX-RIY&list=PPSV

Gif of Sagittarius A* we mentioned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QRpid5_QU


Episode 107: Things That Go Blip in the Night

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 speed through IceCube
https://astrobites.org/2025/05/31/template-post-33

Space Sound: https://youtu.be/VKvuohsicZs (Particle of Doubt by David Ibbett)

Gammapy Song: https://gammapy.org/gammapy_song.mp3 (Gammapy Python package: https://gammapy.org) 

Episode 108: 2000 Meters Under The Mediterranean

Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025

This 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 Simulated Cosmic Choreography
https://astrobites.org/2025/06/19/from-globs-to-gravitational-waves-a-simulated-cosmic-choreography/

Uncovering Precession for GW190521: How the Last Cycle Cracked the Case
https://astrobites.org/2025/06/21/precession_gw190521/

Space Sound: https://soundcloud.com/esa/sound-of-a-juice-boom-deploying

The clock ticking sound is by “opticalnoise” on freedsound.org (https://freesound.org/people/opticalnoise/sounds/201194/).

The alarm sound is by “hypocore” on freesound.org (https://freesound.org/people/hypocore/sounds/164090/).

Episode 109: Big, Small and In-Between

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. They debate what it would take—statistically and scientifically—for a detection of biosignatures to cross the line from intriguing to compelling.

New Constraints on DMS and DMDS in the Atmosphere of K2-18 b from JWST MIRI
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adc1c8

Are there Spectral Features in the MIRI/LRS Transmission Spectrum of K2-18b?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.15916

Insufficient evidence for DMS and DMDS in the atmosphere of K2-18 b. From a joint analysis of JWST NIRISS, NIRSpec, and MIRI observations
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13407

Space Sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGdk49LRB14

Episode 110: Bayesian Biosignatures

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 Sound:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/multimedia/sonifications/

Episode 111: Mergers for Nothing and Your Chirps for Free

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 clusters that orbit our own Milky Way today. Shashank shares a recipe for cooking up YMCs through a computational collision, and Lucia takes a peek at YMCs emerging from their dust-embedded embryonic environs. We round off with a casual discussion of whether simulationists are taking Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus a bit too literally and chat about our favourite star clusters.

Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2025/07/23/ymc_formation/

https://astrobites.org/2025/07/09/gmc-dispersal/

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

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 interview:
https://astrobites.org/2025/08/29/the-looming-drama-for-the-paranal-observatory/

Apply to join us as a co-host! 
https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025

Episode 112.5: Extremely Looming Trouble?

Planets and quenching and stars, oh my! In this finale to our four-part series on machine learning in astrophysics, the team hits the (virtual) road to hear from the experts. Our first stop is Irvine, California, where Tae Baxter teaches us that even galaxies struggle to stay active during quarantine. Next, we’re off to Porto, Portugal, where Ana Barboza uses the planetary ends to justify the k-means. We also make a pit stop for some banana-inspired techno.

Tae’s Website:
sentientstarstuff.github.io
Ana’s UMAP result: 
astrosoundbites.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/ana-epsc-figure.png (EPSC)

Space Sound: 
Video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TR1wdozUYvkqmxqd6
Source: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/giorgio-cam/view

Episode 24: The Stargazing Automata, Part IV

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

astro[sound]bites

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