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In today’s extra-special seasonal episode, Cormac, Lucia and Shashank share some of their highly curated metrics inspired by Spotify wrapped to end our a[s]b year. Much like ourselves, this episode is a mixed bag - we hope you enjoy it! This also marks the start of our long-awaited Winter (or Summer, depending on your hemisphere) break - see you in a few weeks!
Tag: astronomy
Episode 114: A World of Disc-overy
This week, Shashank, Cole, and Cormac dive into the many disks of the universe, from planet-forming disks to AGN and galactic structures. Cole explores a misbehaving protoplanetary disk that hints at chaotic early planet formation. Cormac follows by showing how external radiation can erode disks and hinder the birth of giant planets. We then zoom out to compare these turbulent young systems to the massive disks around galaxies and supermassive black holes, tying together why disks form across so many cosmic environments and the methods we use to explore them.
Episode 113: Black Holes? Here? It’s more likely than you think.
In today’s episode, Cole, Cormac, and Shashank celebrate our glorious return from hiatus by tackling an astronomical favorite: black holes. These guys are important to astronomers for a wide range of reasons, but what happens when you find a black hole somewhere weird? Like in another black hole’s accretion disk? Or in your model of dark energy? Or in a Hot dog? Shashank covers a lot of similar-sounding acronyms for when we find black holes living inside (the accretion disks) of other black holes, while Cormac does his second ever astrobite with a type of sausage in the title, establishing a worrying precedent.
Episode 112.5: Extremely Looming Trouble?
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!
Episode 89: Extremely Emotional Exoplanets
In this episode, we hear about Kiersten and Will’s epic adventures in both hemispheres! Both Kiersten and Will watched the eclipse that passed through North America on April 8, 2024 and are still buzzing with excitement. Kiersten tells us about a recent paper that explores why planets might act so indecisive about sitting between being a super-Earth or mini-Neptune. Will’s astrobite describes a similarly chaotic exoplanetary tale about a very slow moving planet which “came in like a wrecking ball” and “never hit habitability so hard” (everything in quotations must be sung in Miley Cyrus’ singing voice). All in all, we all share a laugh and an emotionally charged episode!
astro[sound]bites 