Whether you are a physics student, an amateur stargazer, or a professional astronomer, it is always fun and mindblowing to watch talented communicators explain foreign concepts in an engaging way. 

But unless you search for a specific subtopic, it can be difficult to find the gems – especially in the age of AI slop flooding every platform.

We have collected a (non-exhaustive) list of the creators that the Astrobites authors watch and recommend. So next time you want to use your screen time to get smarter about space, refer back to here!

We have chosen to focus this list on creators of long-form content published on YouTube – although many of them also make short-form and are present on various platforms – and they are presented in no particular order, but grouped somewhat by category.

Explainers and news in space science

Dr Becky
Dr Becky Smethurst is an astrophysicist at Oxford University, where she works on galaxy evolution. Her content has its feet firmly planted in published academic papers. She focuses not just on the facts, but also the scientific process, caveats, and how we came to know what we know.
Along with deep-dives and explainers about general concepts, she hosts a monthly NightSky News, where she both outlines what you can see in the night sky in the next month, and goes through newsworthy papers published in the recent month. She discusses what they claim, how they arrive at their conclusions, and what possible caveats are associated with the findings. And fun fact: Dr Becky is a former astrobiter, too!

Astro Kirsten
Dr Kirsten Banks is an Australian astrophysicist whose YouTube videos focus on breaking down complex concepts and phenomena, often using real astronomical images to illustrate them, and with a basis in current research. Her channel also has a more human-focused aspect, with several videos about her life as an astrophysicist, and she is good at relating astronomical phenomena to human time scales – for example, in this video of JWST capturing the movement of the outflows from a Wolf-Rayet star. 

Anton Petrov 
Another classic channel doing these types of explainer videos is Anton Petrov, who uploads almost daily videos about news in astronomy and space science – and sometimes a feature from other, adjacent sciences. His approach focuses on clarity and simplicity – no clickbait titles or overly fancy animations. 

Astrum
Astrum is another channel that does explain-the-news content, this time revolving mainly around planets – both the ones in our solar system and exoplanets – but peppered with JWST results and other space news. The videos are well produced, and they pull up and use the papers that the video is based on, giving proper credit and making it feel close to the science. 

And more!
In the same category of medium-length videos about current astronomical phenomena and science news, we have AstroKobi, Dr. Noras Guide to the Galaxy, and Space Mog. The latter, hosted by Dr Maggie Lieu, also has a lot of content about life in astro-academia and her journey through it. 

Fraser Cain
We also have to mention Fraiser Cain. A staple in the online astro communication world for about two decades, he uploads weekly news and Q&As on his YouTube channel, as well as interviews with scientists. The videos have an unscripted commentary/podcast vibe, which may be refreshing in the world of highly polished content.

More explainers

PBS spacetime
If you’re looking to expand your physics horizon while still revolving around astro-things, PBS Spacetime might be the place. As the name may hint, this channel deals with some more fundamental – and sometimes wacky – theories that underlie the laws of our universe, including particle and quantum physics. Produced by one of the biggest global providers of educational television and video content, PBS, the quality is high, while the style stays close to the ground in its classic host-explaining-things-in-front-of-animated-background approach. 

Cool worlds 
For a science-based take on the search for aliens, Cool Worlds is a good bet. Based on the astrobiology research of the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University, this channel discusses the search for habitable worlds, combining astronomy and philosophy in a calm and wonder-filled way. 

Learn the sky 
Would you rather just go stargazing, but informed? Learn The Sky is all about the constellations – how to find them, which stars they’re made of, and their mythological history. This way, we can all stop wondering how three random stars became a water snake – not to mention that pointing out constellations in the sky at night, knowing what they’re called and why, is a very effective party trick.

Sixty Symbols and Deep Sky Videos
In the category of interview-style science content there is one group of channels that dominate the market. The physics channel, Sixty symbols, which is mostly astrophysics-dominated, and the astronomy sister channel, Deep Sky Videos, both follow a clear concept of interviewing experts about their areas of research. Deep Sky goes through astronomical catalogues object by object, producing videos about what makes each object interesting, as well as tours of many large telescopes. Both channels feel colloquial and informal while diving deep into niches of (astro)physics research.

Spaceflight and rockets

Scott Manley
When something is easy to understand, we often say “it’s not rocket science” – but in the case of Scott Manley, both things are true. This channel has everything spaceflight and rocketry-related, explained in a captivating and digestible way. While engineering and orbital mechanics are at the centre, the channel also has a large part dedicated to the video game Kerbal Space Program. He deals with both current themes, like the Artemis II, and with older missions, what they taught us and which questions still remain. 

Mars Guy
Mars Guy’s name says it all – this guy is more passionate about Mars than some people are about their kids. He is an associate professor at Arizona State University who produces relatively short videos, going into deep detail about Mars missions and giving updates on the rovers roaming the surface of our red neighbour. 

Eager Space
If you like rocket stuff and really want to understand the fundamental knowledge, Eager Space is the place to go. Low budget, straightforward and factual, it has the vibe of a well-prepared recorded PowerPoint presentation, and the focus is on getting the knowledge across clearly rather than making it aesthetically impressive, which really makes it feel like entertaining education rather than educational entertainment.

Education

Jason Kendall
If education is what you’re after, you might want to check out Jason Kendall. This seasoned university lecturer has created a channel with full-length, well-produced lecture videos, designed to take you through the rough equivalent of a college-level introduction to astronomy course. 

Phil Plait (Crash Course Astronomy)
No list of astronomy communicators is complete without a nod of respect to Phil Plait, who has been a staple on YouTube for more than two decades. While his own channel, The Bad Astronomer, is a (lovable) mess of many things, and a goldmine of short, illustrative clips of astronomical phenomena with no explanation, his work as a communicator is most clearly seen in the list of TED talks and features he has done – and of course in Crash Course Astronomy. If you want an easily digestible introduction to all of astronomy, this is the place to start. 

Full-length films and episodes

History of the Universe 
If you’re looking for movie-length documentaries, History of the Universe has you covered. It is a professional documentary channel with beautiful visuals and a focus on cosmology and astronomical epochs. Most of the episodes are about an hour long, but the channel also contains some full feature length pieces like this three and a half hour piece promising as much as The Ultimate Guide to Absolutely Everything in the Universe.

Kosmo and SpaceRIP also make full-length documentaries about various astronomy topics, both well-produced and with the vibe of classic TV documentaries. Kosmo produces both long films and medium-length explainers about everything from cosmology to solar system objects and prehistoric Earth. SpaceRIP publishes both stand-alone episodes and series, like the currently running Undiscovered Vistas, which dives into how scientists use landscapes on Earth to learn about what we can’t see on other planets. 

Melodysheep
In the more philosophical corner of astro content, the first mention has to be Melodysheep. This channel produces cinematic and aural masterpieces that tackle big questions of life on Earth and space, and their animations are routinely used by several of the other channels mentioned above. They release both full-length movies and short snippets – and if you venture further back in the archives, there are some nostalgic and ridiculous (in the best way) remixes, memes and tributes. 

SEA 
Calm, ethereal and philosophical, SEA has the best zone-out/fall asleep/feel existential awareness type of content, which is still based solidly in science. Full-length episodes that are well-made and a fresh breath of air from a content world that can sometimes be very high-paced and flashy.

Epic Spaceman
With homemade (and high-quality) animations, Epic Spaceman takes some time between posting, but the videos that come out of it are good at putting the incomprehensible scales involved in astronomy into perspective – by for example representing galaxies as pieces of cereal. The vibe is calm, and he explains the steps in the calculations and approximations that go into them. 

Now you hopefully have a place to start if you want to be entertained while learning about the incredible Universe we live in. Did we forget your favourite astro communicator? Put them in the comments and tell us why you enjoy their content!

Astrobite edited by Evan Nelles

Featured image generated with Google Gemini.