What do we do?
Astrobites is a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy since 2010. Our goal is to present one interesting paper per day in a brief format that is accessible to undergraduate students in the physical sciences who are interested in active research.
Why read Astrobites?
Reading a technical paper from an unfamiliar subfield is intimidating. It may not be obvious how the techniques used by the researchers really work or what role the new research plays in answering the bigger questions motivating that field, not to mention the obscure jargon! For most people, it takes years for scientific papers to become meaningful.
Our goal is to solve this problem, one paper at a time. In 5 minutes a day reading Astrobites, you should not only learn about one interesting piece of current work, but also get a peek at the broader picture of research in a new area of astronomy.
If you’re new to Astrobites and aren’t sure where to start reading, check out our top 10 bites from our first ten years.
What is astro-ph?
astro-ph is the astrophysics section of arXiv.org, where researchers post their latest work (often before official review and publication). We always link back to the original arXiv post, where you can download the original article (for free). Occasionally, we will take on special topics such as results presented at conferences, tips for applying to graduate school, or tutorials for specific research tools.
Who Writes Astrobites?
Astrobites is written by a team of graduate students at universities around the world. We bring a diverse set of research interests and backgrounds to our writing. Please visit the Meet the Authors to learn more about each author.
Astrobites Committees
In addition to writing daily posts, our authors are encouraged to serve on Astrobites committees. Those committees include:
Administrative Committee: Collectively responsible for ensuring that Astrobites committees, working groups, and chairs are upholding their designated responsibilities; Act as intermediaries and advisors to members of the organization; Promote expansion of the collaboration’s work by e.g. promoting its use in classrooms, expanding its readership, or starting up extensions of the site for different media or target audiences. Committee chairs: Roel Lefever, Lucas Brown; Committee members: Erica Sawczynec, Bill Smith, Sahil Hegde, Kylee Carden, Sowkhya Shanbhog, Samantha Wong, Skylar Grayson; Contact: [email protected]
Climate Change Committee: Dedicated to publishing ~1 post each month about astronomy’s impact on climate change; acts as an advocate for addressing the climate crisis in any way they see fit. Committee chairs: Kat Lee, Will Golay; Committee members: Roel Lefever, Kaz Gary, Caroline von Raesfeld, Sahil Hegde, Abbe Whitford
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee: Aims to address issues of representation, marginalization, and community through education (acknowledging minoritized population issues in physics and astronomy, outreach to budding astronomical communities), advocacy (supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives in academic spaces) and efforts to make the Astrobites collaboration inclusive. Committee chairs: Katya Gozman, Kaz Gary; Committee members: Neev Shah, Skylar Grayson, Caroline von Raesfeld, Sahil Hegde, Kat Lee, Erica Sawczynec
Editorial Committee: Ensuring editorial consistency by maintaining the Astrobites style guide, operating periodic editing workshops, and helping the scheduler assign editors. Committee chairs: McKenzie Ferrari, Samantha Wong; Committee members: Shalini Kurinchi-Vendhan, Kat Lee, Annelia Anderson, Brandon Pries, Joe Williams
Education Committee: Focuses on building Astrobites as a pedagogical tool across the astronomical community. The work here emphasizes educational activities during AAS meetings, and education research work to map the efficacy of Astrobites in a typical classroom. Committee chairs: Drew Lapeer, Skylar Grayson; Committee members: Alexandra Masegian, Anavi Uppal, Roel Lefever, Catherine Slaughter, Margaret Verrico, Abbe Whitford, Sahil Hegde, Viviana Cáceres, Sarah Stevenson, Niloofar Sharei, Brandon Pries, Veronika Dornan
Recruiting Committee: Responsible for the annual application process. Specific responsibilities include advertising the call for applications, responding to inquiries, guiding the committee through reading and ranking the applications, and helping new authors get set up. The time responsibilities for leading this committee fall mostly within a 3-month period surrounding the application deadline, which is typically in September or October. Committee chairs: Kylee Carden, Samantha Wong; Committee members: Roel Lefever, Shalini Kurinchi-Vendhan, Ansh Gupta, Chloe Klare, Nathalie Korhonen Cuestas, Kat Lee, Drew Lapeer, Magnus L’Argent, Viviana Cáceres, Annelia Anderson, McKenzie Ferrari, Lucas Brown, Sowkhya Shanbhog; Contact: [email protected]
Policy Committee: Works with the AAS Bahcall Public Policy Fellow to schedule posts about science policy and how it intersects with astronomy. Committee chairs: Bill Smith, Magnus L’Argent; Committee members: Kylee Carden, Amaya Sinha, Ivey Davis, Tori Bonidie, Maria Vincent, Caroline von Raesfeld, Catherine Slaughter, Nathalie Korhonen Cuestas, Olivia Cooper, Lucas Brown
Scheduling Committee: Responsible for ensuring that postings are consistent/timely. The chair will organize the schedule, but the committee will share responsibility for ‘emergency’ postings that arise. Committee chair: Sowkhya Shanbhog; Committee members: Abbe Whitford, Lindsey Gordon, Kat Lee, Brandon Pries, Sarah Stevenson
AAS Chairs (in charge of organizing our AAS/EWASS conference materials and presentations): Bill Smith
SciBites Chair (Liaison for SciBites network): McKenzie Ferrari
Social Media Chairs (in charge of maintaining our Facebook and Twitter presence, and growing readership of the site through these tools): Committee chairs: Niloofar Sharei, Lucas Brown; Committee members: Sowkhya Shanbhog, Samantha Wong, Alexandra Masegian, Drew Lapeer, Lindsey Gordon, Catherine Slaughter
Website Chair (in charge of maintaining our website): Drew Lapeer
Slack Chair (explores Slack as a possible means of communication): Erica Sawczynec
Undergraduate Chairs (Reach out to undergraduate readers and contributors): Sarah Stevenson
Ombudsperson (handles complaints, concerns, or any issues that arise within the Astrobites community; communicates with the Admin Committee when matters arise): Roel Lefever
Merch (organizes merchandise for conferences and Astrobiters): Chloe Klare
(Committee chairs bolded)
Statement of Inclusivity
Scientists are members of a broad human community, and may thus experience societal prejudices that directly affect their ability to contribute to the scientific endeavor. We at Astrobites support and encourage universal participation in science, regardless of minoritized status. We affirmatively declare our support for a scientific community open to — and providing support and safety for — every individual, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or medical condition. Such support includes ensuring that universities, laboratories, and professional societies do not tolerate any form of harassment, and have transparent procedures for addressing such harassment when it occurs. We reject racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and prejudice stemming from religion or citizenship. Eliminating these injustices is the only way to ensure that all people can benefit from participation in science, and we accept this task as integral to the pursuit of science and scientific outreach.
Follow us on Bluesky @astrobites.bsky.social, follow Astrobites on Facebook, or send us an email at [email protected]!
As an independent graduate student organization, since 2016 Astrobites has been hosted and supported by the American Astronomical Society.
Astrobites is grateful to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Computing Group at Harvard University and James Guillichon / Vox Charta for past web hosting.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institutions the author(s) may be associated with. Astrobites is not affiliated with the arXiv.