Was the floor in your childhood home ever lava? If so, you may have been training to visit these spicy magma-filled exoplanets! In this episode, we're turning up the heat and investigating what makes magma/lava so important for potential extraterrestrial life. Sabrina takes us to the poster child of strange lava worlds and finally gives exoplanteers an answer to the long debate of whether it has an atmosphere or if its star blew it away. Then, Cormac tells us all about how water can play well with magma. Kiersten is convinced that these lava worlds might just be the perfect place for a hot summer vacation.

In this week’s episode, we take a look at the hottest trend in dark matter candidates - Primordial Black Holes. They’re like black holes, only smaller (in some cases)! Join us as we see what all the fuss is about. Kiersten shares a story of a black hole playing video games inside a star and glitching out of the mainframe, while Shashank makes his a[s]b debut with an explosive transient conundrum that might explain the mystery of dark matter once and for all. We round off with a discussion about our favourite pet dark matter theories and the merits of direct experimental searches.

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!

Astronomy is hard! And in ways that extend far beyond the science we do every day. In this Beyond episode, Kiersten and Cormac talk all about mental health in astronomy and the structural issues that may be contributing to things like burnout and anxiety. It’s not all doom and gloom though. There are a few things that studies suggest that can help. We also chat about strategies that have helped us when we were struggling in hopes that they may be useful to you too. We round off with Cormac’s Hai-cool poetic riff for our one sentence summary.  Papers discussed: https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.01768 https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4089 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733317300422?via=ihub https://comm.wayne.edu/files/keashly_spectra2015.pdf Cormac’s shameless plug for the Early Career Astronomers’ session at the European Astronomical Society’s meeting: https://eas.unige.ch/EAS2024/session.jsp?id=SS23 Crisis hotlines and remote support: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US): +1-800-273-8255 (live chat also available on website; hearing-impaired TTY users can also dial 800-799-4889) National Crisis Text Line: text/SMS HOME to 741741 for US; to 686868 for Canada; to 85258 for the UK Crisis Services Canada: +1-833-456-4566 (text/SMS and live chat also available on website) Samaritans (UK and Ireland): +44 116 123 (email also available on website) The Trevor Project (US): +1-866-488-7386 (text/SMS and live chat also available on website; the lifeline will talk with any individual regardless of sexuality or gender) Trans Lifeline: US: +1-877-565-8860; Canada: +1-877-330-6366 TelefonSeelSorge (Germany): 0800 / 111 0 111 or https://online.telefonseelsorge.de/index.php