Astro[sound]bites: A new audio resource for conveying recent astronomy research

Astro[sound]bites is an astronomy podcast hosted by three graduate students, designed to communicate recent research results to early-career scientists and the general public in an engaging and accessible manner. Inspired by the popular Astrobites research blog, astro[sound]bites explores the methods and findings of research papers and synthesizes them in the context of ongoing research in the field. Each episode centers around a theme, and the podcast regularly employs interviews with academics at every stage. Occasional “beyond” episodes, in the style of Astrobites, tackle additional topics in academia such as representation in astronomy and atypical career paths. Over 25 episodes have been published across multiple platforms, totalling 4500+ downloads from six continents. Because astronomy is often conveyed visually, astro[sound]bites provides a crucial resource for auditory STEM learning that is freely accessible around the world. In this talk, we will introduce the astro[sound]bites podcast, discuss our current listener base, and outline the ways that we are expanding this initiative.