exocast

In this episode the team cover some of the latest exoplanet news stories. This month Hugh covers the first JWST’s transmission spectrum of a small planet, validating and characterising the exoplanet LHS 475b. Hannah discusses some preliminary work from JWST, including phase curves from WASP-121b and WASP-43b, that reveal the capabilities and quirks of the instruments onboard. Andrew breaks the rules by discussing three papers, 2 of which are closely connected, on the general topic of the potential for serpentinization as a possible source of energy for microbial metabolisms around hydrothermal vent systems.

Exocast is edited by Fergus Hall, you can find more of his work www.fergushallmusic.com.

If you would like to support the show consider donating on our buymeacoffee.com/exocast page, all donations matter and help keep Exocast going. You can also get your hands on Exocast merchandise at exocast.threadless.com

Back on the airwaves after a short hiatus, the Exocast team are delighted to be joined by Georgina (George) Dransfield, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham in the UK, who works on finding new exoplanets using the transit method. George uses data from ground-based surveys like SPECULOOS and space-based surveys like TESS and is also is somewhat unique in observing from Antarctica, specifically using and helping to run the ASTEP pipeline. Of course, George also adds a new planet to our adopted exoplanet family. You’ll have to listen to the show to find out which one she chooses, but it is definitely worth it for the personal and cultural connection to a distant world…

George also mentions a great exoplanet resource pack for teachers, made by the IOP for children aged 11-14, which can be found here: https://spark.iop.org/collections/teaching-exoplanets

Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. You can also get your hands on Exocast merchandise at exocast.threadless.com

Exocast is edited by musician/composer Fergus Hall (https://www.fergushallmusic.com) and is supported by listener donations at buymeacoffee.com/exocast. Each coffee costs $4 and donations over $15 get a shout out on the show. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated. A big thank you to Rick Schwarz, Brian Krelle, and @moylecroft for donations of coffee over the past couple of months

This month Hannah, Andrew, and Hugh are joined in the virtual Exocast studio by planetary scientist Dr Naomi Rowe-Gurney. Naomi is a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Howard University in the USA where she works on all things Ice Giants (Uranus and Neptune) in particular looking at them with JWST. The perfectly timed episode follows on from newly released images of Neptune taken with JWST that Naomi had been working on and we discuss the future of Ice Giant science with JWST and a mission to Uranus. After a health giggle session over an excessive use of the word “Uranus” we dive into the science of what a mission to the planet could help us reveal and what makes the Ice Giants so unique.

In true Planetary Scientist fashion Naomi adopts a Solar System interloper into our Exocast Adopted Exoplanets, but we welcome the adopted drunk uncle, Uranus, into the fold as it barrel rolls around the Sun.

Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. You can also get your hands on Exocast merchandise at exocast.threadless.com

Exocast is edited by musician/composer Fergus Hall (https://www.fergushallmusic.com) and is supported by listener donations at buymeacoffee.com/exocast each coffee costs $4 and donations over $15 get a shout out on the show. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

We cover this month’s most exciting exoplanetary (and solar system) news:

• Andrew tells us about details of the proposed “Venus Life Finder” mission which would go beyond ESA & NASA’s selected Venus missions to directly sample for organic molecules in the temperate regions of Venus’ atmosphere using an interplanetary balloon!
• Hugh talks about how analysis of the multi-planet systems found by Kepler is still revealing new insights, in this case how chains of planets appear to have a defined outer edge.
• Hannah talks about the open-source atmospheric modelling software PICASO 3.0, and argues for the benefits of astronomers making their code open-source.

Hugh, Hannah & Andrew turn their attention to a simple question with a very complicated answer: our favourite!

This month we are pondering how planets form. What do we know about planet formation from the Earth, observations from our Solar System, and of distant exoplanetary systems? Where are the gaps in our understanding of the processes involved? Do the theories and models of planet formation hold up to observational scrutiny? We might not be able to answer all (or any) of these questions definitively, and arguably we ended the discussion with more questions than when we started, but we had fun along the way!

What did you think of the discussion? Join in the conversation in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. If you want to support the Exocast Podcast then you can Buy us a Coffee, or get your own merchandise at exocast.threadless.com. All merch sales and donations directly support the show by covering our web-hosting and editing costs, and are absolutely invaluable for keeping us on the air. A huge thank you to Carl N. for a very generous donation of $100, and to Jack in Oregon for his 7 coffees!

Exocast is edited by composer/muscian Fergus Hall (https://fergushallcomposer.com) and supported in part by funding from the University of Bristol via H.Wakeford starter funds.

The latest news hot off the Exocast news desk for July/August 2022, another exciting month for exoplanet science:

• Andrew takes some time to discuss the life and influence of Dr James Lovelock, the co-originator the Gaia Hypothesis, who died recently. His news this month takes the form of two independent but neatly connected papers on the topic of ‘chirality’: ‘The Chiral Puzzle of Life’ by Globus and Blandford, and ‘Directional Aspects of Vegetation Linear and Circular Polarization Biosignatures‘ by Patty et al.
• Hannah summarises ‘Chemical Abundances for 25 JWST Exoplanet Host Stars with KeckSpec’ by Polanski et al. in anticipation of the publication of a larger elemental abundance catolog derived from Keck/HIRES optical spectra.
• Hugh covers Zhang et al‘s ‘Detection of Atmospheric Escape from Four Young Mini Neptunes’ that details the smallest and youngest planets for which escaping atmospheres have been detected, with implications for the exoplanet ‘radius valley’.

What did you think of the papers/news discussion? Join in the conversation in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. If you want to support the Exocast Podcast then you can Buy us a Coffee, or get your own merchandise at exocast.threadless.com. A big thank you to Tobias Andropolis for recently buying 7 coffees!

Exocast is edited by composer/muscian Fergus Hall (https://fergushallcomposer.com) and supported in part by funding from the University of Bristol via H.Wakeford starter funds.

The latest news hot off the Exocast news desk for June/July 2022, a very exciting month for exoplanet science:

• Hannah gives us a run-down of some of the long-awaited first images from JWST, including a spectrum from the atmosphere of WASP-96b from the NIRISS instrument showing clear water features. The team try (and fail) to contain their giddiness at the prospect of entering a new era of exoplanet astrophysics.
• Andrew takes to the theory literature to hightlight a paper by Mol Lous et al. in this months’ Nature Astronomy that explores ‘Potential long-term habitable conditions on planets with primordial H–He atmospheres‘.
• Hugh casts a critical eye over a white paper by Jian Ge et al. that outlines China’s ambitious ET (“Earth 2.0”) transiting exoplanet mission concept.

What did you think of the papers/news discussion? Join in the conversation in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. If you want to support the Exocast Podcast then you can Buy us a Coffee, or get your own merchandise at exocast.threadless.com

Exocast is edited by composer/muscian Fergus Hall (https://fergushallcomposer.com) and supported in part by funding from the University of Bristol via H.Wakeford starter funds.