The Exocast team are joined on this show by Dr. Néstor Espinoza from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, USA. Néstor is an Assistant Astronomer and Mission Scientist for Hubble and JWST at STScI, where he focusses on transiting exoplanets and their stars. He also provides support for HST and JWST as Mission Scientist for Exoplanet Science in the Instrument Division, and Néstor speaks to the Exocast gang about balancing these distinct roles,
The Exocast team are joined on this show by Jules Fowler, a NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where they work to improve extreme adaptive optics technologies and seek the signatures of exoplanets in polarized light. Jules also shares insights gleaned from four years working as an analyst and science software engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), where they had the pleasure of collaborating with Exocast’s own Hannah
The Exocast team return from a short hiatus to be joined on this show by Dr Jason Wang from Northwestern University in Illinois. Jason is a direct imager, and gives us a quick overview of how we are able to find and characterise planets through direct imaging, as well as discussing the Gemini Planet Imager, 51 Eridani b, KPIC, VLT’s Gravity, and the making of the well-known, jaw-dropping animation of the planetary system around HR
In this most excellent 100th episode of Exocast from the team we bring you the latest in exoplanet research and news. Hannah and Andrew cover news from the TRAPPIST system. Hannah will dive into the JWST results that have come out about this very famous system of seven Earth-sized rocky planets. Two papers look to the mid-infrared to measure the light directly from the planets b and c in emission – finding that they likely
In this episode, Hannah, Hugh, and Andrew ask the question: Do all planets orbit stars? Even though the vast majority of planets found so far are bound to a star, there have been detections of planetary-mass objects floating alone through space. Are these planets? How do these objects form, and how can we detect them? Is it possible that these free-floating objects could be considered ‘habitable’? The exocast gang tackle these tricky topics and other
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
This month the exocast team chat to exoplanetary astronomer Dr Maximillian Guenther. We talk about finding transiting exoplanets with TESS & NGTS, open-source transit modelling, flares from M-dwarf stars, the role of UV in prebiotic chemistry, chemical mixing experiments in zero-g aboard the vomit comet, connections between science and art, and his role as project scientist of the ESA CHEOPS mission. And, of course, hear which important and personally connected planetary system Max has adopted
In this episode Andrew, Hannah, and Hugh discuss the art and science of organising, and attending, scientific conferences, with a particular focus on the recent Exoclimes VI meeting held in Exeter, UK, organised by Hannah and others in the exoplanet community. These meetings are crucial for the dissemination and communication of new results among the community and further afield, but they can be daunting to attend, and very stressful to organise. The team share their
Hugh, Hannah, & Andrew discuss a handful of interesting recent exoplanet papers from the past few months. We chat all things Exoclimes VI held in Exeter in June 2023, new discoveries, exciting atmospheres, and haze formation. Hugh highlights a new discovery of “A temperate Earth-sized planet [LP 791-18 d] with tidal heating transiting an M6 star” by Peterson et al. Hannah dives into an escaping atmosphere covering “Giant Tidal Tails of Helium Escaping the Hot
In this episode Andrew, Hannah, and Hugh reflect on where their careers and research in exoplanet science have led over the past few years as a chance to (re)introduce ourselves to new and regular listeners alike! We hope you’ll appreciate a slightly different format for this show. 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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
This month Hannah, Andrew & Hugh are joined by NASA Goddard’s space telescope expert, Dr. Knicole Colón. Fresh from her NASA TV appearance unveiling JWST’s first exoplanet spectrum to the world, the JWST Deputy Project Scientist for Exoplanet Science gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the big day, as well as how the team got JWST ready for science. She also discusses the ongoing TESS mission searching for new planets, as well as the Pandora
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
The latest exoplanet news hot off the Exocast news desk: Hannah gives us a run-down of the Exoplanets IV conference held recently in Las Vegas, at which both her and Hugh were in attendence, including summaries of interesting sessions and presentations. Hugh presents a great new paper from Panahi et al. 2022 entitled “The Detection of Transiting Exoplanets by Gaia” that demonstates the Gaia spacecraft’s ability to contribute to exoplanet detection. Andrew keeps things in