Description (podcaster-provided):
Hello! Welcome to the StarXiv, hosted by Dr Michelle Collins and Dr Payel Das. This is a biweekly podcast that delves into the latest astronomy papers & results from the arXiv. Michelle and Payel are astronomers at the University of Surrey. They love research, but struggle to find time to read a lot of papers. They’re hoping this podcast fixes that. The beautiful logo is designed by Izzy Gray, a PhD student currently studying at the University of Surrey.
Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ arXiv astronomy papers • galaxy formation, dwarfs, mergers, disks • Milky Way archaeology, chemical abundances, star clusters • black holes, supernovae, transients • dark matter, cosmology, gravitational lensing • exoplanets, interstellar objects, technosignatures • machine learning
This podcast is a biweekly discussion of recent astronomy and astrophysics papers posted to arXiv, hosted by professional astronomers. Across the episodes, the conversations survey a broad range of research areas while emphasizing how new data and modern analysis methods are reshaping current questions in the field.
A recurring theme is galaxy formation and evolution, from the structure of disks, bars, stellar halos, and satellite systems to the assembly history of the Milky Way through “galactic archaeology” using stellar chemistry, ages, and kinematics. Many episodes also focus on the faint end of the galaxy population—ultra-faint dwarfs, ultra-diffuse galaxies, “failed” or quenched systems, and searches for hidden satellites—often as tests of feedback, environment, and reionization.
Black holes appear frequently across mass scales, including the formation of early supermassive black holes, intermediate-mass black holes in clusters and dwarfs, tidal-disruption events, and black-hole demographics informed by gravitational-wave results. Cosmology and dark matter are another throughline, with discussions touching on dark-matter halo structure, warm/mixed dark-matter constraints, lensing and Einstein rings, large-survey results, and probes of cosmic expansion.
The show also covers stellar and planetary astrophysics: supernovae as cosmological tools, variable stars and flares, stellar streams and globular clusters, protoplanetary disks and planet formation (including unusual planets and wide-orbit scenarios), and Solar System topics such as Pluto’s surface and Mercury’s magnetosphere. Several episodes highlight machine learning and automated methods applied to imaging, spectra, merger identification, photometric redshifts, and flare forecasting, alongside occasional forays into SETI and technosignature searches.
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Episodes:
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Episode 32 - Ancient star clusters and growing black holes
2026-Mar-16
31 minutes
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Episode 31 - Near Earth Objects, Little Red Dots, bursty star formation and life around massive stars
2026-Mar-02
32 minutes
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Episode 30 - Direct collapse black holes, nuclear stellar discs, and machine learning merger histories
2026-Feb-16
27 minutes
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Episode 29 - Exploding stars, carbon stars, and starbursting pseudo little red dots
2026-Jan-26
32 minutes
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Episode 28 - Fading stars, digesting planets and dark matter conundrums
2026-Jan-12
33 minutes
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Episode 27: Making a Milky Way, searching for dwarfs, and elusive black holes
2025-Dec-22
32 minutes
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Episode 26: A tail of tales, little galaxies, and starspots
2025-Dec-08
31 minutes
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Episode 25: Extragalactic exoplanets, simulating individual stars, and galaxy mergers as cosmic ray factories
2025-Nov-24
42 minutes
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Episode 24 - Strong lenses, Solar Flares and young, high alpha stars
2025-Nov-12
36 minutes
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Episode 23 - Failed galaxies, faint galaxies, and the proto-Galaxy
2025-Oct-27
41 minutes
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Episode 22 - ORCs, rings, and Galactic histories
2025-Oct-13
37 minutes
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Episode 21 - Mercury, chemistry and quasi periodic eruptions
2025-Sep-29
37 minutes
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Episode 20 - Dark galaxies, black holes, star formation and life in the faintest galaxies?
2025-Sep-15
33 minutes
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Episode 19 - Peering into the Local Universe, distant black holes, forming planets and alien signatures
2025-Sep-01
36 minutes
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Episode 18 - disks, disks and more disks!
2025-Aug-18
38 minutes
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Episode 17 - detecting dark matter, unusual black holes and speedy stars
2025-Aug-04
38 minutes
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Episode 16 - interstellar visitors, molten planets and faint, dark galaxies
2025-Jul-21
35 minutes
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Episode 15 – Flare-inducing planets, avoiding catastrophe, and accreted star clusters
2025-Jul-07
39 minutes
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Episode 14 - A cosmic owl, misaligned planetary systems, and the Milky Way as an outlier
2025-Jun-23
39 minutes
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Episode 13 - Missing Europium, Pluto's craters, 43,000 Goblins and some Pop III stars
2025-Jun-09
34 minutes
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Episode 12 - Signs of life, little red dots and the links between star clusters and high redshift galaxies
2025-May-25
39 minutes
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Episode 11 - Whirling planes, wandering black holes and alien supernovae
2025-May-12
39 minutes
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Episode 10 - Mixing dark matter, surviving black holes and hunting for planets
2025-Apr-28
36 minutes
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Episode 9 – Slowing bars, growing black holes, pasta sauces and AI
2025-Apr-14
34 minutes
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Episode 8 – Cosmology, pulsars and dark matter in disk galaxies
2025-Mar-31
37 minutes
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Episode 7 - Black holes, stealthy satellites and the distance to DF2
2025-Mar-10
30 minutes
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Episode 6 - Einstein rings, black holes, and ringed galaxies
2025-Feb-24
32 minutes
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Episode 5 - Galaxies, gas accretion, and aliens
2025-Feb-10
32 minutes
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Episode 4 - January
2025-Jan-28
28 minutes
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Episode 3 - December
2024-Dec-20
46 minutes
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Episode 2 - October
2024-Nov-18
35 minutes
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Episode 1 - September
2024-Nov-01
27 minutes
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