Astrophysics podcasts

The Supermassive team revisits an interview with Meg Schwamb about the Kuiper Belt and the small bodies beyond Neptune. The conversation explores what these distant objects can reveal about the Solar System’s formation and evolution. This is the explicitly labelled revisited edition published in September 2026.

The astro[sound]bites team introduces cohost Vivasvaan and his work on galaxy mergers and machine learning. The discussion explains why mergers are useful probes of galaxy evolution and gives an early-career researcher’s perspective on the field.

Ulrich Sperhake and Seppe Staelens explain hypothetical boson stars and how researchers use mathematical modelling to investigate them. The discussion connects these unusual compact objects to black holes, gravity and gravitational-wave observations.

David Kipping considers how to reason about extraterrestrial life when evidence is scarce. The discussion covers promising places to search, the interpretation of possible biosignatures and the role of statistical inference, alongside questions about habitable worlds and moons beyond our solar system.

Hosted by Janna Levin

Interviews with Seshadri Nadathur and Maggie Lieu cover cosmological tensions, DESI observations, galaxy clusters and machine learning. Reports from the Euclid-UK and LSST:UK meetings add perspectives on major surveys and the future of observational cosmology.

Shashank, Cole and Cormac explore Fourier methods in time-domain astronomy through research on time lags in blazar flares and weather on nearby brown dwarfs. The episode page links the underlying Astrobites summaries, making it a useful entry point into the papers and their methods.

Roger Deane, Walter Silima and Sally McFarlane discuss the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy at its tenth anniversary. Topics include South Africa’s MeerKAT and SKA research capacity, the Ilifu cloud, CARTA, immersive data visualization and training. The episode offers a practical view of the people and infrastructure supporting African radio astronomy.

Harry Bevins discusses REACH, a South African global 21-centimetre experiment, and the proposed lunar-orbit Cosmocube mission. Claire Davies discusses academic experience, while Soheb Mandhai describes simulation research and postdoctoral work at Manchester.

Cole, Cormac and new host Sanika discuss gravitational-wave astrophysics: neutron-star and black-hole mergers, LIGO and Virgo observations, and future detectors including LISA. The conversation introduces both the scientific signals and the research questions driving the field.

Øystein Elgarøy discusses what cosmology can say about conditions preceding the conventional Big Bang account. Conversation in Norwegian.

Øyvind Grøn discusses conflicting measurements of the universe's expansion rate and the questions raised by the Hubble tension. Conversation in Norwegian.

Jostein Riiser Kristiansen discusses the observational evidence for dark matter and dark energy and the questions they leave unresolved. Conversation in Norwegian.

Øyvind Grøn discusses gravitational waves, their detection by LIGO and what these measurements reveal about distant cosmic events. Conversation in Norwegian.

Øystein Elgarøy discusses the anthropic principle, apparent fine-tuning of physical laws and proposals involving multiple universes. Conversation in Norwegian.

Øyvind Grøn discusses black holes, their prediction by relativity and the observations used to study them. Conversation in Norwegian.

Øystein Elgarøy discusses the development of Big Bang cosmology and evidence about the history of the universe. Conversation in Norwegian.