exocast

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 theirRead more

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 HotRead more

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, butRead more

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 merchandiseRead more

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 topicRead more

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, GeorgeRead more

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,Read more

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.