Have you ever wondered how astronomers discover something they've never seen before?

In this episode of Astrophysics for All, I'm joined by Dr. Kishalay De, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University, whose research explores some of the universe's most spectacular "cosmic fireworks"—from exploding stars and stellar mergers to the first convincing evidence of a star swallowing one of its own planets.

We talk about what it's like to stumble across a discovery no one was expecting, why astronomers use everything from infrared light to gravitational waves to study the universe, and how the next generation of observatories could uncover phenomena we've never even imagined. We also discuss the growing role of AI in astronomy, the importance of strong foundations in physics, and why some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs begin with curiosity rather than certainty.

Whether you're interested in astronomy, physics, or simply curious about how discoveries are made, I hope you enjoy the conversation!

Professor Robert Simcoe is the Director of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and one of the world's leading astrophysicists on spectroscopy and the early universe.

In this episode of Astrophysics for All, Rob explains how astronomers use light to study the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang. He shares why he likes to say that "if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a spectrum is worth a thousand pictures," and reveals how a beam of starlight can tell us about the composition, motion, and history of objects billions of light-years away.

We also discuss what it's like to design and build cutting-edge astronomical instruments, the excitement of detecting photons that have travelled for over 13 billion years, and how telescopes allow us to look back in time and uncover the universe's origin story.

How do you study something you can't see?

In this episode, Yale astronomy PhD candidate Isabel Medlock explains how astronomers use powerful computer simulations and mysterious fast radio bursts to investigate the invisible universe. We discuss the cosmic web, the search for the universe's missing matter, and how scientists can effectively "rebuild" the cosmos inside a computer to understand how it evolved over billions of years.

We also chat about life as a computational cosmologist, the importance of making science accessible, and what advice Isa would give to students hoping to pursue astrophysics themselves.