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!

Roel’s interview:

Apply to join us as a co-host! 

Episode 112: It’s not fun to be in a YMC, eh?

Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025

In today’s episode, Cormac, Shashank and Lucia come together to crack open the craziness inside Young Massive (Stellar) Clusters - some of the most exciting neighbourhoods in our Universe. They’re a very hot topic at the moment, and not just because of their intense radiation - they host the majority of massive stars, and ancient YMCs might be the ancestors of the globular clusters that orbit our own Milky Way today. Shashank shares a recipe for cooking up YMCs through a computational collision, and Lucia takes a peek at YMCs emerging from their dust-embedded embryonic environs. We round off with a casual discussion of whether simulationists are taking Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus a bit too literally and chat about our favourite star clusters.

Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2025/07/23/ymc_formation/

https://astrobites.org/2025/07/09/gmc-dispersal/

The only thing better than studying the largest compact objects in the universe is smashing them together. In this episode, Lucia, Shashank, and Cole cover binary black hole mergers and what these violent events can tell us about our universe! Lucia talks us through some mergers' specific spins and Cole forces Shashank to talk about cosmology again. 

https://astrobites.org/2025/07/17/lss-bbhgw-expansionrate/

Space Sound:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/multimedia/sonifications/

Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025

This week, Shashank, Cole and Cormac discuss a concept that has come up on many an ASB episode past: Bayesian statistics. They start by trying to wrap our heads around what a probability really means. Cole introduces us to a recent and attention-grabbing paper on a potential biosignature in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, with lots of statistics along the way. Then, Cormac brings up some counterpoints to this detection. They debate what it would take—statistically and scientifically—for a detection of biosignatures to cross the line from intriguing to compelling.

New Constraints on DMS and DMDS in the Atmosphere of K2-18 b from JWST MIRI

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adc1c8

Are there Spectral Features in the MIRI/LRS Transmission Spectrum of K2-18b?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.15916

Insufficient evidence for DMS and DMDS in the atmosphere of K2-18 b. From a joint analysis of JWST NIRISS, NIRSpec, and MIRI observations

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13407

Space Sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGdk49LRB14

Apply to join us as a co-host! https://astrosoundbites.com/recruiting-2025

This week, Lucia, Cole and Cormac discuss cosmic sandwich kids: intermediate mass black holes. Where are they hiding? How do they form? And can they grow up to become supermassive black holes? To answer questions like these, we take a look at globular cluster simulations and a famous gravitational wave event: GW190521. The discussion takes us to alien civilisations in the far, far future. 

From Globs to Gravitational Waves: A Simulated Cosmic Choreography

Uncovering Precession for GW190521: How the Last Cycle Cracked the Case

Space Sound: https://soundcloud.com/esa/sound-of-a-juice-boom-deploying

The clock ticking sound is by “opticalnoise” on freedsound.org (https://freesound.org/people/opticalnoise/sounds/201194/).

The alarm sound is by “hypocore” on freesound.org (https://freesound.org/people/hypocore/sounds/164090/).

This week, Lucia, Cormac, and Shashank dive into the depth of the Mediterranean Sea to discover more about the most energetic neutrino measured to date, which had an energy of a whooping 120 PeV! They then pay a visit to the South Pole to discuss what the ICECUBE neutrino observatory can tell us about the proton fraction of cosmic rays at the highest energies. 

Casting a wide (KM3)NeT for a record-breaking neutrino

Kachow! Three high energy neutrinos speed through IceCube

Space Sound: https://youtu.be/VKvuohsicZs (Particle of Doubt by David Ibbett)

Gammapy Song: https://gammapy.org/gammapy_song.mp3 (Gammapy Python package: https://gammapy.org) 

The more things change, the more they, uh, change. This episode Cole, Shashank, and Cormac cover the exciting events that change what we see on the night sky. Ancient astronomers tracked the motions of the planets and the arrival of “guest stars” (supernovae), and nowadays we’re lucky enough to see some really wild and energetic events. Cormac gives us a view into what happens when a star punches through a black hole’s accretion disc, Shashank shows us a particularly persnickety pulsar, and Cole gets his twenty minute monologue on modern classical music cut for time. 

Astrobites:

This Pulsar Has Mood Swings

https://astrobites.org/2025/05/21/this-pulsar-has-mood-swings/

X-treme X-rays in an X-tra young system

https://astrobites.org/2025/04/16/x-treme-x-rays-in-an-x-tra-young-system/

Space Sound:

Gif of Sagittarius A* we mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QRpid5_QU

In this episode, we say goodbye to one of our beloved hosts, Sabrina Berger. We take a voyage through the depths and breadths of Sabrina’s research experience. Cole tells us how Sabrina investigates JWST’s ability to estimate the masses of galaxies through the glare of their quasars, and Lucia tells us how Sabrina used navigation satellites to calibrate radio telescopes. In between, we quiz Sabrina on her own ASB episodes and finish with Sabrina’s experience in 3 different countries and Sabrina’s advice for future grad students!

Arxiv links:

- https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.06144

- https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12130

In this episode, the (domestic) American sector of Astro[sound]bites covers the recent proposed budget cuts to NASA, the largest in NASA’s entire history. We cover the downsides that these cuts would have for science and the economy, and what you can do to speak out.

How to reach out:

Find your representative:

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

AAS Letter Writing Guidelines for Astronomers: 

https://aas.org/advocacy/get-involved/action-alerts/action-alert-2025-support-science

Planetary Society Letter Writing Guidelines for the General Public

https://www.planetary.org/advocacy-action-center#/53

Astrobite with Guidelines for Letter Writing

https://astrobites.org/2025/04/15/help_nasa/

Sources: 

The Budget Request (NASA Stuff begins on page 39 of the pdf)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf

Original ArsTechnica Report:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/

NASA’s economic output:

https://www.nasa.gov/fy-2023-economic-impact-report/#:~:text=NASA%20Boosts%20the%20U.S.%20Economy,D.C.%2C%20in%20fiscal%20year%202023.

NASA’s economic output reaches all 50 states:

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-economic-benefit-reaches-all-50-states/

NASA’s research on climate change

https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/

NASA’s research on asteroid defense

https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense/

NASA Education and Outreach

https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/space/education-outreach/

Cuts disproportionately affect marginalized groups:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91328007/trumps-federal-layoffs-are-disproportionately-impacting-women-and-people-of-color

In today’s episode, Cormac, Cole and Lucia catch you up with all things Citizen Science. In the epoch of ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini (no, not the telescope), it’s easy to forget about the 20 Watt computer you’re using to read this sentence. Yes, even YOU can contribute to cutting-edge astronomical research, as we present two examples of cosmic crowdfunding in action. Cole convinces us that nearby galaxies need some Clump Scouts, and Lucia shows us how volunteers have been the (tur)key to finding a new star-studded dwarf galaxy. We also discuss the non-research benefits of democratising science, and in a fourth-wall-shattering pivot, we ask you, yes YOU, what you’d like to hear more of on a[s]b.

[email protected]

Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2024/07/29/galaxy-zoo-clump-scout/

https://astrobites.org/2023/11/18/a-lonely-little-galaxy-at-the-edge-of-our-neighborhood/

Space Sound:

Adapted from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6vbST9iMOU

XKCD Comic:

https://xkcd.com/1425/

Article about the (not so?) amateur astronomer:

https://astro.arizona.edu/news/tucson-doctor-wins-national-award-his-second-act-amateur-astronomer