Hugh, Hannah, & Andrew discuss a handful of interesting recent exoplanet papers from the past few months. We chat about the news coverage of K2-18b and the claims of biomarkers in that atmosphere, new discoveries, exciting atmospheres, and haze formation. Hannah dives into the controversy of K2-18b and the announcement of DMS (a biomarker on Earth) detection amongst a methane dominated spectrum “Carbon-bearing Molecules in a Possible Hycean Atmosphere” by Madhusudhan et al.. The team
In this episode the team cover some of the latest exoplanet news stories. This month Hannah summarises the most recent exoplanetary science coming out of JWST’s early release science programs; Andrew tells us a bit about the habitability of Enceladus’s subsurface ocean, and Hugh talks about a new observation of compositional differences for planets around M-dwarfs.
As always, the exocast team covers a few extraordinary recent exoplanetary results in Exocast-53 c: First off, Hannah briefly describes the problem with (and solution to) NASA Hubble’s elderly on-board computer Andrew details a few interesting results that emerged from the 2021 Goldschmidt conference, including updates on the bombardment of the early Earth, ancient methanogenic fossils, gasses trapped in diamonds, and new constraints on snowball earth. Hugh describes the ESA CHEOPS mission, and its serendipitous
In Exocast-52c Hugh, Andrew, and Hannah take us through three reviews of papers that have been recently published in the planetary/exoplanet literature.
In this episode the Exocast team discuss Earth’s twin planet, Venus, and its link to exoplanetary science. We start with an overview of the past, present and future of Venusian exploration, from the first Soviet probes to the three newly-selected missions (DAVINCI+, VERITAS and EnVision) which will explore the atmosphere and surface of Venus more thoroughly than ever before. Then we turn to the open questions about Venus – its potential ancient habitability, the lack
For the second exocast news for 2021 Hannah talks about the physics of raindrops in planetary atmospheres, Hugh explores the color possibilities of the Kepler Photometric data, and Andrew discusses the role of chance in the habitability of the Earth as an exoplanet
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?
On Exocast-45d we bring you the news from across exoplanet research this month with new discoveries, characterisations, habitability and formation papers. In America, WFIRST has been renamed the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in honour to the pioneering “Mother Hubble”, while in Europe the LIFE mission kicked off. We have lots of new exoplanets being discovered (from TESS, NGTS, WASP and RVs), and un-discovered, as was the case for Fomalhaut b. Characterisation studies have also
In the eleventh episode, Exocast-11b: Hannah covers all the incredible news about the Trappist-1 system, talking us through the discovery of seven new earth-sized worlds around this nearby ultra-cool dwarf. Andrew talks about the philosophy of exoplanets, from the ancients, through the dark ages, and into the modern era. And Hugh sits in at the exocast newsdesk to cover the release of 60,000 HIRES RVs, new transit-hunting surveys MASCARA and BRing, the star HAT-P-2 beating to the rhythm of