exocast

For the first news segment of 2021 Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew talk through three papers from exoplanet science:

Hugh covers the Direct confirmation of the radial-velocity planet β Pictoris c

Hannah discusses 3D simulations of photochemical haze in the atmosphere of the hot Jupiter HD189733b

And Andrew takes us through the science and drama of Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus

Remember you can join in the discussion 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

In this months episode Exocasters Hugh Osborn, Hannah Wakeford, and Andrew Rushby attempt to answer the question they posed last year: What is the point of the Habitable Zone?

The term Habitable Zone is often thrown around by scientists, the media, and in the general public. But what does the term really mean and how do we use it. Join us in what is at points a heated discussion on all the aspects of the science and language involved in this hot cool just right topic.

The #ExoCup2020 was full of wonderful and baffling surprises. The Exocast team take a look at what went on, which planets triumphed or failed, and what you did to bring this competition to life.

This year’s competition was a true reflection of 2020. We had election fatigue bloom into campaign videos. Exoplanets making their own twitter accounts to ask for your vote. YouTubers, live streamers, and parody accounts asking you to vote for a specific planet. But most importantly we had some amazing exoplanet science shared with everyone.

If you enjoy our content and want to support the Exocast team then pop over to our Buy Me a Coffee page. For just $10 you can also put your favorite exoplanet in for a potential wildcard slot in #ExoCup2021!

This month Hugh, Andrew, and Hannah talk to astrophysicist, folklorist, and science communicator Moiya McTier. Moiya is an NSF graduate researcher at Columbia University in New York City and works to understand exoplanets from a galactic perspective.

The Exocast team talks to Moiya about work from measuring the topography on an exoplanet by the effect that mountains and other features have in transit, all the way up to how the stars in the Milky Way are moving and the effects those might have on their planets. The blended approach Moiya takes to science with a look too folklore and the way we perceive our universe gives a new spin to the way we can view and measure exoplanets and our universe. We chat about how to best communicate what astronomy is to others and how to make the right connections.

We also take the opportunity to talk to Moiya about what it is like to be a black woman in the astronomy community. The value of familiarity and shared experience in any field is important and we need to be more aware of ourselves and others to make this field more inclusive. See, think, act.

Concrete Steps for Recruiting, Supporting, and Advancing Underrepresented Minoritized Scientists

UK Actions and resources for #BlackLivesMatter

• Buzzword alert! A mini-Neptune and Venus-zone planet in the radius valley orbiting an M2 star has been validated with the Habitable-zone planet finder.
• Four jovian sized worlds discovered around the low luminosity stars
• Wendelstein-1b and 2b
• A habitable-zone planet in Kepler-160?
• The finally published discovery of AU Mic b
• Discovery of Gliese 887b & c

• Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b got two papers this month. One looking for Cr and V, and the other cataloging an array of metals in its atmosphere.
• Hubble WFC3 IR grism spectroscopy of the warm Neptune HD 106315c
• Another search for TiO in the atmosphere of WASP-33b.
• Hubble PanCET program has a new transmission spectrum out of HAT-P-32b
• TESS phasecurve observations of the brown dwarf KELT-1b
• The most likely clouds muting and obscuring molecular features in transmission spectra are composed of magnesium silicates.
•  3D GCM models to map the formation of hydrocarbon haze in the atmosphere of WASP-43b

• Mineral dust increases the habitability of terrestrial planets but confounds biomarker detection
• The Effect Of Varying Atmospheric Pressure Upon Habitability And Biosignatures Of Earth-like Planets
• Reports from the Goldschmidt conference
• and… The strangely precise conclusion that there are 36 intelligent civilisations in out galaxy.

In this episode, the team sits down to ponder the question how many exoplanets are there?

At first, this might seem like a relatively straightforward question that can be answered by NASA’s Exoplanet Archive, but it becomes more daunting when considering, for example, the biases and limitations of our instruments that affect our ability to even detect and characterise many planets, how we define a ‘planet’, and whether or not we have surveyed enough stars to consider our sample of planet-hosting stars to be representative of the wider stellar population.

But, at the core of this topic, are some of the fundamental questions and motivations that have always made us, as humans, look up at the night-sky and wonder if any of those stars had, in their orbit, a planet like our own.

So, listen along as the team makes an attempt at tackling this tricky question with a bit of statistics, a bit of astronomy, a little philosophy, and even a well-developed fishing metaphor (a first for the show).

This month Andrew, Hannah, and Hugh chat with Dr Batiste Journaux (Research Associate in the Department of Earth and Space Science at the University of Washington) about all things icy and the role of different ices in our Solar System and exoplanets. Baptiste is a multidisciplinary scientist whose research spans the lab, fieldwork, and modelling and software development, we talk about how these all fit together to explore alien worlds in our solar system and beyond.

In this episode we learn how you form “hot ice”, the best way to measure ices in the interior of other worlds, and how the properties of different ices can shape another world.

Adopted Planet: TRAPPIST-1g – possible one of the best “ocean worlds” with high pressure ices. Future observations of this world might help us understand more about icy exoplanets. It joins its sibling TRAPPIST-1h in our adopted exoplanet family.

ExoCup2019 Français: Baptiste also translated our ExoCup2019 cards into French. So, for all our French speaking listeners you can find the translated cards here.