Astrobites for your ears

astro[sound]bites is a brand new podcast featuring recent Astrobites posts and the papers they summarize.

Every episode, we use three recent Astrobites to introduce a topic in astronomy and explain the current state of research. We hope the podcast will be both instructive and collaborative as we learn about new research together and share it with you!

Whose voices will you hear?

(Check out Episode 0 where we introduce ourselves and discuss the podcast in more detail.)

Alex Gagliano

I’m a second year PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studying problems in observational and computational cosmology.  I work with Prof. Gautham Narayan to develop software tools for classifying supernovae and other explosive transient events in large surveys. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Computational Modeling and Data Analytics from Virginia Tech. Outside of astronomy, I love biking, hiking, thrift stores, and mango sticky rice.

Malena Rice

I am a third-year Ph.D. student at Yale University, working with Prof. Greg Laughlin to study icy small bodies and how they can teach us about planet formation and evolution. I received my Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from UC Berkeley in 2017, where I worked with Dr. Gaspard Duchene to characterize debris disks as part of the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey. I also love to read, play the flute, explore art museums, and eat great bread.

Will Saunders

I am a second year Ph.D. student at Boston University, where I study planetary atmospheres. I work with Prof. Paul Withers at BU and Dr. Mike Person at MIT using stellar occultations to measure waves and climatic changes in the atmosphere of Mars. I received my Bachelor’s in Physics & Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania. In my free time I enjoy listening to podcasts, visiting museums, and tasting new wines.

Episode 1: Disks

Disks, discs, or disques…no matter how you spell them, disks are relevant to many areas of astronomy! In our first episode, we discuss three recent papers describing disks of different size scales: circumplanetary, circumstellar, and galactic disks. 

Check out the three Astrobites from this episode here: 

• Moonetesimals Likely Form Relatively Quickly by Samuel Factor
• With Age Comes Wisdom by Jessica Roberts
• The Imprint of an Invisible Giant by Spencer Wallace

Where to listen?

Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. Your choice!

When to listen?

Every 2 weeks…ish. New episodes will be released on Saturdays.

Contact us

[email protected]

Thanks to Joel Ong for music composition and Joanna Ramasawmy for logo design. We also thank the Astrobites community for input and support in the development of this podcast.

• About the Author

About Will Saunders

I am a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University, where I study planetary atmospheres. My dissertation research involves using new and archival stellar occultations to measure the upper atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. My work aims to better understand how the atmospheres of the ice giants are heated to hundreds of degrees. I received my Bachelors in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. Be sure to check out astro[sound]bites, the only podcast combining Astrobites posts with lighthearted discussion about the latest astronomy research. Find us on astrosoundbites.com, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, SoundCloud, and Spotify. In my free time, I enjoy cycling, exploring New England, and trying new wines.