exocast

For this episode the Exocast team are joined by Dr Matthew Kenworthy from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Matt’s work focuses on strange transit events and the search for new ways to better process data. Matt started his career in the instrumentation lab and we dive into that transition to more remote hands-off research. We talk about his work with the assassin, sorry ASASSN, network and the search for weird dips, and then what the future of instrumentation holds for our search for planets in the universe. In addition, as always we ask our guest to adopt an exoplanet into our Exocast family with Matt choosing PSR 1829-10 – listen in to find out why and if it exists at all!? Matt is a British astronomer who did his PhD at the University of Cambridge after an undergrad at Oxford, he then held postdocs at Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona, and then at the University of Cincinnati then back at Steward as an instrument scientist, however he has been working and living in the Netherlands for the over a decade as a professor at the Leiden Observatory. Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on bluesky. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

We sat around our virtual studio to chat with Queensland-based astronomer Jonti Horner, who works on planetary dynamics – both within our own solar system, and around others. As well as discovering the impact of giant planet dynamics on habitable planets like earth, we also discussed the importance of aboriginal astronomy in Australia, his various media appearances, and Jonti’s namesake asteroid. Finally, Jonti adopts a special planet into our hall-of-fame list. Listen to find out more! Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on bluesky. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

Join the Exocast team as they chat with Dr Malena Rice an expert on planetary and exoplanetary dynamics through both theory and observation. Malena tells us about her journey into professional astronomy. Malena grew up and attended college in California before moving to the east coast for grad school in the Yale Department of Astronomy, only taking a quick one years’ break as 51 Peg fellow at MIT before returning to Yale as an Assistant Professor in 2023. We ask what the first year as a faculty member is like and how she approaches her research and outreach.

This month the gang sit in with Dr Eamonn Kerins, expert in gravitational microlensing from the University of Manchester. He tells us how astronomers can find extremely distant exoplanets through the warping effect their mass has on light itself; and takes us through the past, present and future of one of the more obscure exoplanet detection methods. This includes how ESA’s Euclid mission could contribute to NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman campaign to find hundreds of new planets in the galactic bulge. We also hear about his journey through astronomy, and outreach projects including as a Green Alien at Jodrell Bank.

For this episode the Exocast team are joined by Dr Benjamin (Ben) Pope from the University of Queensland, Brisbane. Ben has worked on everything from transit light curve modelling, to direct imaging instrumentation, to using tree rings to study solar activity and we try desperately to cover it all in the episode. Ben shares with us what excites him the most about the search for exoplanets and how instrumentation developments drive or understanding of these worlds and more importantly (to some) their stars. In addition, as always we ask our guest to adopt an exoplanet into our Exocast family with Ben choosing K2-110b which holds a special significance for him and one of our Exocast hosts – listen to find out more! Ben completed a PhD in the UK at Oxford before being awarded a NASA Sagan Fellowship which he took to NYU in the USA. He is now faculty at the University of Queensland where his group works on methods of directly imaging exoplanets. Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter, bluesky, and mastodon. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

The Exocast team are joined on this episode by exoplanetary interior investigator Professor Caroline Dorn. Caroline started her career in Earth sciences and geophysics, studying for her PhD aquifer systems at the University of Lausanne, before switching her focus to the interiors of more distant worlds in 2013 with postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Bern and Zurich. As of April 2023, Caroline is an Assistant Professor for exoplanet science at ETH Zürich, and her newly established interdisciplinary exoplanet research group at the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics is also part of the Center of Origin and Prevalence of Life. Caroline outlines what we can learn about the interior structure of rocky exoplanets from mass and radius measurements, as well as how these planets may form and evolve over time and whether plate tectonics is necessary for sustaining an atmosphere and for habitability. As always, Caroline also adds another interesting exoplanet to our growing list of Adopted Planets. Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter, bluesky, and mastodon. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

The Exocast team are joined on this episode by Dr. Louise Nielsen, a Danish astronomer who, after a batchelor’s degree at Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, moved to the Geneva Observatory for a PhD focussing on radial velocity (RV) observations of exoplanets. Louise then completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, before joining the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich as a staff astronomer in 2023. Louise discusses RV of young planets, follow-up of candidates found by TESS, the future of RV surveys, and she also outlines her early work with ground-based transit surveys including the now-ended WASP survey and NGTS. As is tradition, Louise also adds another interesting exoplanet to our growing list of Adopted Planets. Danish speakers should check out her astronomy podcast Stjerneklart. Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter, bluesky, and mastodon. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

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, as well as his interest in developing open-source modelling and analysis tools for exoplanet science. As always, Néstor also adds an exoplanet to our growing list of Adopted Planets; this one may be familiar to regular listeners…! Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter, bluesky, and mastodon. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

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 Wakeford to discover transiting exoplanets. As always, listen to the show to find out which ‘planet’ (hint) Jules has adopted into our hall-of-fame this time… Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter, bluesky, and mastodon. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated.

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 8799. Listen to the show to find out which planet Jason has adopted into our hall-of-fame as Exocast’s ‘Adopt-a-planet’ returns. Do you have a question we didn’t ask? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter, bluesky, and mastodon. 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. We cannot make the show without your support and it is very much appreciated. Movie of the HR 8799 planets orbiting their star. Image produced by Dr Jason Wang

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 do not have an atmosphere possibly stripped by their stars radiation. The first spectroscopic measurements of TRAPPIST show that the star itself is going to be the “star” of the show with stellar contamination dominating the data. But we remain optimistic! 5 more planets await their observations and there is much to learn about this small cool star. Andrew covers a paper that discusses the feasibility of detecting some biosignatures from TRAPPIST-1 d and e using JWST. This “experimental sandbox” for astrobiology makes TRAPPIST the perfect place to start. The theoretical studies uses a climate model to ask the question: what could we see if it was there? The model looks for methane, carbon dioxide, oxygen, ozone, methyl chloride, and methyl mercaptan; with methane and carbon dioxide pair being the best combo to suggest something out of equilibrium possibly caused by life. But is the question we should be asking, is this the right system to look for life at all? – what do you think? Hugh then takes us back to formation in a dramatic fashion with an astronomical mystery. A young star has been dimming and almost disappeared for over a year with variations in the starlight over nearly 1000 days. The question simply is: What is going on? It is almost always something to do with dust. This can be seen over different wavelengths showing the dust interacting with the light. But in this case the exciting new result is that about 3 years before the dimming happened, a bright event was seen in the system. What the team found through simulations suggest that there was a giant collision of planets in that system that created the bright event and then the debris field blocking the light. Space is really remarkable! 100 episodes is a huge milestone and as always Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew could not do this show without you! Thank you for listening. Exocast is edited by Fergus Hall. You can help support Exocast and the team at BuyMeACoffee.com/exocast, and get yourself some Exocast merch at exocast.threadless.com

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 nomenclature-related debate surrounding this seemingly simple but deceptively complex question. 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.

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 discuss the responsibility we have as scientists to portray the statistics (in this case the lack of evidence to support the claim) to the press and how extraordinary claims require extraordinary care. Hugh highlights a new discovery of “A close-in giant planet escapes engulfment by its star” by Hon et al. And finally, Andrew explores “Planetary Scale Information Transmission in the Biosphere and Technosphere: Limits and Evolution” by Lingham et al. Exocast is edited by Fergus Hall. Image credit: Artistic ilustration of planet K2-18b, its star K2-18 and the second planet K2-18. Credit: Alex Boersma You can help support Exocast and the team at BuyMeACoffee.com/exocast, and get yourself some Exocast merch at exocast.threadless.com

This month the exocast team chat to exoplanetary astronomer Dr Maximillian Guenther. We talk about finding transiting exoplanets with TESS & NGTS, bright flares from M-dwarf stars, open-source transit modelling, 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 he adopted into our hall-of-fame.

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 personal experiences with conference attendence and organising and consider the changing role and format of the science conference in modern academia. 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.

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 Jupiter HAT-P-32 b” by Zhang et al. And finally, Andrew explores “Exoplanet Volatile Carbon Content as a Natural Pathway for Haze Formation” by Bergen et al.

The Exocast team are back and this time joined by the esteemed Nikole Lewis, Professor and Deputy director of the Carl Sagan institute at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, USA. We chat all things career, JWST, the future of exoplanet characterisation with the Roman Space Telescope and Nikole add her favourite Neptune mass exoplanet GJ 436b to the Exocast Adopted Planets archive.

Hugh, Hannah, & Andrew discuss a handful of interesting recent exoplanet papers from the past few months. Andrew delves into technosignatures and a study which looked at whether nearby extraterrestrial civilisations could detect our current levels of radio leakage, and exactly what they might be able to learn. Hannah condenses the most recent JWST exoplanet paper, on the nearby transiting super-Earth GJ486b. The beautiful spectra from JWST appear to show hints of water vapour, but is it in the planetary atmosphere or the activity on the surface of the star? And finally, Hugh covers a trio of papers which all used a combination of Hipparcos & Gaia astrometry as well as high-contrast imaging from some of the world’s largest telescopes to confirm a new giant planet orbiting the young star AF Lep.

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 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 huge thank you to mraroid for their ongoing donations to the show!

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. Hugh’s paper: A JWST transmission spectrum of a nearby Earth-sized exoplanet (arxiv pre-print, submitted to Nature Astro) Hannah’s papers: A JWST NIRSpec Phase Curve for WASP-121b: Dayside Emission Strongest Eastward of the Substellar Point and Nightside Conditions Conducive to Cloud Formation A First Look at the JWST MIRI/LRS Phase Curve of WASP-43b (arxiv pre-print) Andrew’s papers: Diverse geochemical conditions for prebiotic chemistry in shallow-sea alkaline hydrothermal vents Deep-branching acetogens in serpentinized subsurface fluids of Oman Microbial biosignature preservation in carbonated serpentine from the Samail Ophiolite, Oman 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

It's everyone's favourite time of year. No, not because of halloween, leaf-peeping or mulled wine - because it's #ExoCup season! Yes, for the sixth time, Hannah, Hugh & Andrew will use the power to twitter polls to let the public decide which single exoplanet deserves to wear the crown as the people's champion for 2022. In this special episode, we reveal the planets chosen for the 2022 edition - including 24 from the exoplanet literature, and 8 "wild cards" chosen by our hosts. We then draw the groups and make our predictions for who will go the distance, and who will make a quiet first-round exit. The first polls will open on November 6th, with the grand final happening on December 5th. Head over to twitter to join in with the polls by following @ExocastExoCup

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. 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.

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 small-sat designed to look at exoplanet atmospheres on a budget, both of which Knicole is also managing. And we hear about her origins as a space scientist, from the movie Contact, to a project at Arecibo, through the KELT planet-hunting survey, and to her first taste of NASA project management at the Kepler GO office. And, as always, we also hear which planet Knicole will adopt into our growing exoplanetary hall-of-fame.

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.

Hugh, Hannah & Andrew pick sides to debate astronomy’s deepest divide. Are you with Hugh on the side of the observers, who insist that it is only with new telescopes, instruments and data that we can reveal physical properties of exoplanets and develop our understanding of the universe. Or are you, like Andrew, on the side of the theorists, who ensure that we can deeply understand the physical properties of exoplanets by doing experiments and simulations, and observations are simply a tool to test theories? Or do you prefer to take Hannah’s path, and jump chaotically between the two sides?

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 the up in the air when discussing “Can Carbon Fractionation Provide Evidence for Aerial Biospheres in the Atmospheres of Temperate Sub-Neptunes?“ by Glidden et al. 2022. 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.

In this episode of Exocast the team are fortunate to be joined in the virtual studio by Dr Jennifer Burt, NASA/JPL’s Extreme Precision Radial Velocity Investigation Scientist, for an extreme discussion of the radial velocity technique for finding and characterising exoplanets. Jenn gives us a comprehensive and enthusiastic rundown of the method, US and European RV surveys, supporting current and future photometric missions with RV follow-up, and an update on new technology and instruments that are pushing the limits of radial velocities for exoplanet detection to extremely high precision, including automated planet-finding telescopes. Of course, Jenn was also tasked with adding a new planet to our Adopted Planets list… listen to the show to find out which one she chose and why. (Spoiler: she discovered it!) Want to know more about Dr Burt’s work? Check out her website and tweets @astrojennb. Do you have a question we didn’t ask? 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 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.

Join us for this months news episode where the Exocast team delve into new discoveries, characterisation, and astrobiology investigations to learn all about the latest research being published in exoplanets. Andrew takes us through some new astrobiology work “Metabolically diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth’s oldest seafloor-hydrothermal jasper“ from Papineau et al. 2022 Hannah covers the latest in characterisation with “A New Analysis of 8 Spitzer Phase Curves and Hot Jupiter Population Trends: Qatar-1b, Qatar-2b, WASP-52b, WASP-34b, and WASP-140b” from May et al. 2022 Hugh looks into some new discoveries from “TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME) VI: an 11 Myr Giant Planet Transiting a Very Low Mass Star in Lower Centaurus Crux“ by Mann et al. 2022 What did you think of the papers discussion? 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 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.

This month Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew go back to basics to discuss the diversity and complexity inherent in the study of planetary atmospheres. Exocast-59b touches on how we define an atmosphere and takes a sojourn through the varied and beautiful atmospheres of the Solar System, as well as a journey back through time to consider the long evolution of the atmosphere of our planet. How does an atmosphere form and change over time, cling to objects ranging in size from the Moon to Jupiter and beyond, and can it be lost forever to space? Extending beyond the Solar System we consider how astronomers search for and study exoplanet atmospheres and the role of the star in terms of their formation, physics, and chemistry, as well as the importance of the atmosphere for habitability. Is the atmosphere of the Earth optimal for habitability? Join in the discussion in the comments below, and find us on Twitter. If you want to support the Exocast Podcast you can get merch at exocast.threadless.com, or you can Buy us a Coffee; a huge thank you to Steve Hungsberg and Anton who donated last month! Your contributions are warmly and gratefully received. Exocast is edited by composer/muscian Fergus Hall (https://fergushallcomposer.com)

In this months News episode Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew each discuss a paper from the past month of the latest exoplanet research including, JWST test data analysis, Oxidative Earth, and multi-star systems.

In this episode the Exocast team talk with Dr Megan (Meg) Schwamb about her work from the solar system to distant exoplanets and citizen science. The show is jam packed with exciting science and enough ice cream analogies to build an Exocast Parlour. We discuss in detail the process of going from a strange looking light curve posted in PlanetHunters Kepler to publication and bonafide planet, how you can track ice formation at Mars' poles, and take a look to the farthest reaches of our solar system to ask what is out there and what does that mean for our planets formation history. Meg also inducts PH-1b into the Exocast Adopted Planets family.

In this episode the Exocast team take us through three of the latests studies in exoplanet research touching on biosignatures, planet formation and disruption, and the effects of space weather on close-in exoplanets. Join them to learn the latest in exoplanet science!

This month Hugh, Hannah and Andrew discuss a deceptively simple question about the limits of planetary size... Exocast-57b takes you from measurements of exoplanet radius and mass, the difficulty with the IAU definition of planets, to the formation of brown dwarfs and stars. They even dive into the importance of size on habitability, the size limits of a rocky world compared to a gaseous world, some of the stand out candidates for the "biggest" exoplanet, and whether a planet can ever be bigger than a star (spoiler: yes, but never in mass).

In this episode the Exocast gang chat with Dr Mark McCaughrean, who is a Senior Advisor for Science & Exploration at the European Space Agency (ESA), as well as a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Science Working Group Interdisciplinary Scientist, about the recent launch, deployment and commissioning of JWST. Mark shares scientific and personal highlights of his long involvement with the telescope, his experience of JWST’s launch from French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021, and insights regarding the revolutionary exoplanet science that the platform will enable. We also take some time to discuss ESA’s other exoplanet-centric missions (GAIA, ARIEL, PLATO, CHEOPS) as well as the differences and similarities between NASA and ESA operations, their ongoing partnerships, and synergies. In lieu of an adopted planet, Mark shares his thoughts on what may be the most exciting JWST-enabled astrophysical discoveries of the next decade(s). Mark is also the co-founder of Space Rocks, a fantastic initiative to bring science, music, and culture together in a celebration of space and exploration. Hannah stopped by to continue the conversation about JWST with Mark and others on a recent episode of Space Rocks’ webcast series ‘Uplink‘.Follow Mark on Twitter: @markmccaughrean

That’s right it is that time of year again where the Exocast team pit planet against planet in the Twitter poll show-down: ExoCup! In this episode Andrew, Hugh, and Hannah look at the rundown of exoplanets that were mentioned the most in the past year of research publications and the top 23 join last years ExoCup2020 winner WD-1856b to fill out the first 24 exoplanets in Pots 1, 2, and 3. They then take a look at what is missing – what worlds did not get represented, what methods should we highlight, and what the we want to see in the Cup – to fill out the 8 remaining wildcard slots. The line up of planets has been decided, but which will fight each other for the win? Well that is down to Hugh’s random selector which sets out Groups A – H for the round 1 battles. The team discuss what they think will happen (listen to previous shows you will know we always get it wrong) and select their winner for better or worse. You can find all about this years ExoCup2021 on the webpage where you will find all the ExoCup2021 fact sheets and the competition bracket. ExoCup2021 runs from November 1st – 24th 2021 on twitter via @exocastexocup member, if you enjoy the show and want to help support us, you can donate just a few dollars at buymeacoffee.com/exocast . You can also support the show and get yourself some exocast merchandise at the same time from exocast.threadless.com

The exocast team covers the latest news in Exoplanets including a critical look at the so called "Hycean" worlds recently proposed to be the best places to look for life, a detailed run-down of the Elements magazine issue on "Geoscience beyond the solar system", and some new and refined exoplanet measurements and discoveries.

In this episode the exocast team discuss how we observe exoplanets from the ground, how is it different from space, where do we put the telescopes and why.

In Exocast-52c Hannah, Andrew and Hugh review the exoplanetary field over the last month, including a fix for Hubble's ageing computer, a host of habitability updates from the Goldschmidt conference, a new transiting planet around a naked-eye star, and results from testing exoplanet hazes in the lab.

In this episode the Exocast crew are excited to talk with expert science communicator, JAXA space scientist, and master of computer simulations, Professor Elizabeth Tasker. During the hour long discussion we talk about how Elizabeth transitioned into planetary research from a degree and PhD in galactic simulations, the journey from the UK to the US, Canada and now in Japan. Where the idea for her popular science book The Planet Factory came from and why we should all have contact forms on our websites. Elizabeth also shares some thoughts on teaching, how to convince someone to hire you for a job they have not advertised and the amazing array of JAXA missions she now gets to talk about. In our Adopt a Planet section Elizabeth welcomes GJ 832 c to the Exocast Adopted Planets list and fills us in on the personal and professional reasons for her choice! Listen to the show for more details. You can find links to all of Elizabeths videos, books, and research at elizabethtasker.com you can also follow her on Twitter @girlandKat (with a K).

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 of plate tectonics, and of course its recently-detected potential biosignatures – all of which link to questions we will soon be asking of terrestrial planets outside our own solar system… For more discussion of Venus you can check out our interview with Stephen Kane in Exocast-42b, and Exocast-48c where Andrew covers the detection of Phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere. And 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 episode the Exocast gang are joined by veteran exoplaneteer Dr Mark Marley from NASA Ames. During a nearly hour-long discussion, we probe Mark's experience of early exoplanet discovery and characterisation efforts in the 1990s, his work on clouds and atmospheric circulation models, 'ice' giants, brown dwarfs, his leadership role with the LUVOIR space telescope concept, as well as his cheerleading efforts during the Exocup.

In this month’s news rundown Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew provide a summary of three interesting papers that appeared on their radar during February/March 2021: Hugh takes a look at The Chemical link between stars and their rocky planets by Vardan Adibekyan and others.Andrew summarises Lithologic Controls on Silicate Weathering Regimes of Temperate Planets by Kaustubh Hakim and team.Hannah dons a thermal raincoat to cover Water on hot rocky exoplanets by Edwin Kite and Laura Schaefer. We would also like to give another big thanks to Steve Hungsberg and Elsie Lee who loaded us up with some coffee money to support the show, and a massive thank you to Anton who donated a whopping $100! If you also enjoy the show and want to help support us, you can donate just a few dollars at buymeacoffee.com/exocast You can also support the show and get yourself some exocast merchandise at the same time from exocast.threadless.com

In this months discussion Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew discuss the question: Why do we study exoplanets? The team take a look at their own personal motivation and how they each came study exoplanets, as well as diving into the technological applications of astronomy, and the philosophy behind the big questions in astronomy. Astronomy has been at the root of huge technological advances, from the X-ray machines at the airport, to the development of computer languages, better infrared detectors and advanced observations. Ultimately, should all of the things we do have an economic benefit? We don’t think so. “Blue skies” research asks the big broad question that are seemingly unimportant; why is the sky blue? but are fundamental to life here on Earth and our curiosity about our origin and universe. This month we are giving a big shoutout to Steve Hungsberg and Graham Lee who loaded us up with some coffee money to support the show, and a massive thank you to Anton who donated a whopping $100! If you also enjoy the show and want to help support us, you can donate just a few dollars at buymeacoffee.com/exocast You can also support the show and get yourself some exocast merchandise at the same time from exocast.threadless.com

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.