Welcome to the StarXiv! A monthly podcast that delves into the latest astronomy papers & results from the arXiv.
Hosted by Michelle, Payel, and Nicole.



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Episode 42 – disk clumps, triple systems and an exciting new stream!
Michelle and Nicole review recent arXiv papers, highlighting significant findings such as a globular cluster stream outside the Milky Way, disk clump migration in galaxies, a unique pulsar triple system, and a peculiar metal-poor star in the Milky Way disk. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred platform.
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Episode 41 – the age of the Universe, AI and literature reviews, and giant companions
Payel and Michelle delve into another group of wonderful papers on the astronomy arxiv! They discuss dating the Universe, comparing 2025 large language models in their ability to assist with literature views, telling apart exocomets and giant companions, early signatures of secular evolution in disk galaxies, and the abundance of data to come from Vera…
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Episode 14 – A cosmic owl, misaligned planetary systems, and the Milky Way as an outlier
In this episode, we had Payel and Nicole filling in for Michelle who’s away on holiday. Nicole is a PhD student, also at the University of Surrey Astrophysics research group. They discuss the direct detection of HI beyond the local universe, how the Milky Way seems unusually cold, a planetary system with two misaligned planets,…
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Episode 13 – Missing Europium, Pluto’s craters, 43,000 Goblins and some Pop III stars
In this episode, Michelle and Payel discuss why dark matter halos have a Universal density profile, how to age-date Pluto’s surface with craters, delayed Pop III star formation, dwarf candidates in the UNIONS survey, a problem with Europium and whether Little Red Dots are really AGN. Listen below, on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you…
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Episode 12 – Signs of life, little red dots and the links between star clusters and high redshift galaxies
This episode, Michelle and Payel are very on-theme as they discuss whether Little Red Dots can be explained by super Eddington accretion; the high abundances of nitrogen to oxygen in the most distant galaxies and whether this is tied to globular cluster formation; the stellar graveyard in galaxies, and claims of signs of life in…
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Episode 11: Whirling planes, wandering black holes and alien supernovae
In this episode, Michelle and Payel discuss whether wandering intermediate black holes are mythical or not, how planes of satellites may form from cosmic accretion, how to form double hot Jupiters, whether Kelper’s supernova remnant is an ‘alien’, whether Unions I is the faintest star cluster or the faintest galaxy, and just how old our…
The Hosts
Payel Das & Michelle Collins 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. Nicole Buckley is a PhD student at the University of Surrey. She loves reading papers!
Keep in touch
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