StarXiv: a podcast discussing the latest astronomy papers

StarXiv: a podcast discussing the latest astronomy papers

di Michelle and Payel
Astronomia
Stagione 1
Episode 38 - merging galaxies, exploding stars and the beauty of individual galaxies
In this episode, Michelle and Nicole discuss machine learning methods to classify merging galaxies and different classes of supernova. They also look into whether planetary engulfment can explain unsual chemical signatures in some binary systems, and dive deep into some beautiful MUSE data for a spiral galaxy at redshift 0.09. Check it out below, on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts! Check out the papers we featured below A Deep Study of the Spiral Galaxy W2246f - Evelyn J. Johnston et al. Chemical paradox in a binary system: Exploring metal enrichment in HD 81809B - Nuno Moedas et al. Vision-Language Model Ensembles Achieve Human-Expert Accuracy for Galaxy Merger Classification - Marco Chiaberge et al. Photometry is all you need: supernova classification as a mixing problem - Ana Sofía M. Uzsoy & V. Ashley Villar
S1 · E38
8 giu 2026
35:44
Episode 37 - Lunar craters, primordial black holes & growing galaxies
In this episode, Michelle and Payel talk about the asymmetry in the number of craters across the moon, using microlensing to find primordial black holes, tracing the growth of disk galaxies since z~1, and using machine learning to detect group galaxies merging with massive clusters. Check out the papers we discussed below: Lunar ejecta as the missing piece to resolving lunar cratering asymmetry - Hailiang Li et al. AMPM II. — A Lunar-Mass Primordial Black Hole Microlensing Candidate in the Milky Way Halo - Renee Key et al. Witnessing the rapid growth of disk galaxies over cosmic time using JWST and HST - Samane Raji et al. Identifying group galaxies merging with massive clusters using machine learning - Rhys Jordan et al.
S1 · E37
25 mag 2026
32:52
Episode 36 - Dead Earths, magnetic fields and Galactic amnesia
In this episode, Michelle and Nicole discuss primordial magnetic fields, Galactic merger memory, the origin of Venus's carbon dioxide rich atmosphere and using Galactic stars to predict extragalactic abundances. Listen below, on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
S1 · E36
11 mag 2026
33:17
Episode 35 - More Milky Way mayhem, Fast Radio Bursts, and very cold disks
In this episode, Nicole and Payel discuss an accurate dating of the Gaia-Enceladus Sausage merger with the Milky Way, a new probe of matter clustering on small scales using Fast Radio Bursts, a new analysis of the retrograde stars in the Milky Way, and a simulation perspective on the very cold disks found at high redshift by ALMA. And check out the papers below: The Last Galactic Firework: Timing the last significant merger with stars, globular clusters and 𝜔 Centauri Chervin Laporte and Matthew Orkney Signatures of Suppressed Matter Clustering revealed by Fast Radio Bursts Kritti Sharma et al. Substructures of the Milky Way's Retrograde Halo: Evidence for Multiple Accretion Events Young Kwang Kin et al. Dynamically cold discs in high-redshift galaxies: comparison between ALMA observations and TNG50 Yi He et al.
S1 · E35
28 apr 2026
34:08
Episode 34 - The cosmic web, the ancient Milky Way, and planets around small stars
In this episode, Nicole and Payel discuss a stellar system located towards the Galactic bulge, the structure of filaments in the cosmic web, the homogeneity of the chemical compositions of exoplanets born in the same disc, and the possibility of water-rich hot super Earths. Check out the papers below: The multi-age stellar populations of Terzan 5 as revealed by JWST Giorga Zullo et al. Universal Dark-matter Density Profiles of Cosmic Filaments Peng Xu et al. A Chemical Mismatch Between Young Stars and Their Inner Disks Diogo Souto et al. Super-Earth masses and stellar abundances from NIRPS reveal tentative evidence for water-rich formation around M dwarfs Drew Weisserman et al.
S1 · E34
13 apr 2026
28:51
Episode 33 - Bananas, blueberries, planet eating stars and the fate of the Milky Way
In this episode, Michelle and Payel delve into the story of UV bright galaxies at high redshifts, hints of population III stars, black hole binaries, planet eating stars, pulsars in Omega Centauri and whether or not the Milky Way and Andromeda will merge. Find all the links to the papers at Starxiv.com.
S1 · E33
30 mar 2026
32:07
Episode 32 - Ancient star clusters and growing black holes
In this episode, Michelle and Nicole were on-theme with their paper choices. They discuss whether and how stars from ancient globular clusters populate the stellar halo of the Milky Way, and look into research on growing massive black hole seeds in the smallest dwarf galaxies. Tune in here, on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
S1 · E32
16 mar 2026
31:17
Episode 31 - Near Earth Objects, Little Red Dots, bursty star formation and life around massive stars
In this episode, Michelle and Payel discuss the latest theories of little red dot formation, bursty star formation at high redshift, triple-double radio galaxies, where asteroids like Apophis come from, and how likely life might be around massive stars. Check out the episode below, on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
S1 · E31
2 mar 2026
32:34
Episode 30 - Direct collapse black holes, nuclear stellar discs, and machine learning merger histories
In this episode, Payel and Nicole delve into more JWST discoveries and the frontier of machine learning in astronomy - an ultra-deep view of the cosmic web, machine-learning deep images to look for mergers, a direct collapse black hole explanation to Little Red Dots, machine-learning the Milky Way to reveal complex star formation histories of accreted systems, and the earliest nuclear stellar disc observed to date. Check out the papers below. An ultra-high-resolution map of (dark) matter - Diana Scognamiglio et al. Convolutional Neural Networks for classifying galaxy mergers: Can faint tidal features aid in classifying mergers? - Yeonkyung Lee et al. The Little Red Dots Are Direct Collapse Black Holes - Fabio Pacucci et al. Two faces of Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus: Mining the chemical abundance space with graph attention networks - Milan Quandt-Rodriguez et al. A nuclear disc at Cosmic Noon: evidence of early bar-driven galaxy evolution - Zoe A. Le Conte et al.
S1 · E30
16 feb 2026
27:20
Episode 29 - Exploding stars, carbon stars, and starbursting pseudo little red dots
In this episode, Michelle and Nicole hit the arXiv and dig into the latest on Thamnos - an ancient Milky Way merger, carbon stars in the Large Magellanic Stars, Supernova Type Ia as cosmic probes, and a little red dot that isn't a little red dot. Tune in here, on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. And check out the papers below
S1 · E29
26 gen 2026
32:14
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