Exoplanet Radio

An international team of astronomers has directly imaged this exoplanet, one of the coldest ever seen. The team observed Epsilon Indi Ab using the coronagraph on Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument. Only a few tens of exoplanets have ever been directly imaged by space- and ground-based observatories. These observations are ushering in a completely new era in exoplanet research. Show Notes Available at...

The Orion Nebula, M42, is the largest stellar nursery close to Earth. Within this massive complex some 1300 light years away, the James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled hundreds of Jupiter-sized rogue planets roaming freely here. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/discoveries/rogue-planets-jwst/.

To increase our chances of finding life on other planets, a systematic approach needs to be adopted, one that applies reasonable assumptions that maximize our success. So, an important question becomes, where should we point our telescopes? Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/science/closest-exoplanets-with-life/.

Nothing lasts forever, stars live and die over the course of hundreds of millions to billions, and in the case of red dwarf stars, trillions of years. Planets are born from the remnants of their parent stars and die over a shorter timescale. Life on those planets, if it exists, is presumed to be shorter still, governed entirely by the environments provided by the combination of the star and planet...

Over the course of this show, we’ve talked many many times about the Transit Method for detecting exoplanets. It is simply the measure of a star's decrease in brightness as the star passes through our line of sight. This once difficult measurement has now become commonplace and can even be done with advanced amateur astronomy equipment under a reasonably dark sky. Show Notes Available at https://e...

Meet TOI-1853 b, one of the weirdest exoplanets ever discovered! It's about the size of Neptune, but four times more massive. It orbits its star so closely that it completes a full orbit in just 1.24 days. This makes it very hot, and it's located in a region of space known as the 'hot Neptune desert', where astronomers have been looking for Hot Neptunes but unable to find any. Show Notes Available...

In recent years, scientists have made great strides in the search for extraterrestrial life. They have discovered thousands of exoplanets. And some of them are located in the habitable zone of their star, which means that liquid water could exist on their surface and is essential for life as we know it. The search for life however, is a little more involved than finding planets, measuring their lo...

The James Webb Space Telescope has completed observations of an exoplanet that may contain an ocean-covered surface underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. This discovery provides a fascinating glimpse into a planet unlike anything in our Solar System, and raises interesting prospects about potentially habitable worlds elsewhere in the Universe. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/di...

On September 9, 1999, a team of astronomers from the High Altitude Observatory made a groundbreaking discovery. Using the radial velocity method, they detected a massive, Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a Sun-like star HD 209458. This was the first exoplanet to be discovered using this method, and since that fateful day, this system has become a champion of firsts. Show Notes Available at https://ex...

Deep in the cosmos, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered four new worlds orbiting a pair of young stars. These planets are providing scientists with a glimpse into a little-understood stage of planetary evolution - the time when atmospheres are being formed. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/science/glimpse-early-planet-formation/.

TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky, close-to-Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone around the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 approximately 40 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/exoplanets/trappist-1e-most-habitable-exoplanet/.

Based on our experience here on Earth, we know life here to be tenacious and ubiquitous. Even in the harshest climates, if we look hard enough, we can usually find some sort of life there. We are hoping the same is true on worlds around other stars, and recent research has begun looking into the question of whether life on other worlds could exist in the most inhospitable environs: the terminator...

Finding habitable worlds has been a driving passion since we first learned there were other planets out there, and to find them, we are going to need a dedicated instrument that does nothing else but tries to locate and characterize them. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/science/habitable-worlds-observatory/.

Human beings have discovered over five thousand five hundred exoplanets. Over 80 percent of them have orbits shorter than 50 days which would place them at over twice as close to their star as Mercury is to the Sun. Some are even closer. Recent observations from TESS however have found one with an orbit of 82 days and another measured in hundreds of days. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetr...

We know surprisingly little about Proxima Centauri b, but astronomers have just confirmed that it is not a transiting exoplanet. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/discoveries/proxima-centauri-b-not-transiting-exoplanet/.

Move over TRAPPIST-1, there a new system that is just as exciting. TOI-700 is a system of four rocky, Earth-sized worlds and some might be habitable Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/exoplanets/many-worlds-toi-700/.

Here is a planet that is so dark that it reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it. How can a planet be so black? What makes it glow like a burning ember? And what kind of weather does it have? Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/exoplanets/tres2b-planet-reflects-no-light/.

Most of the 5000 exoplanets discovered so far have been found using methods that don’t actually see the planet at all. Brightness dimmings and star wobbles only get us so far. They limit our ability to study them in detail and astronomers are working on gigantic starshades to resolve planets directly Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/science/starshades-find-exoplanets/.

The next big milestone in our study of exoplanets is a telescope that can see beyond the limits of our eyes, beyond the boundaries of our solar system, beyond the frontiers of our knowledge. A telescope that can reveal the secrets of the stars and the mysteries of the planets. A telescope that can take us closer to finding another home in the cosmos Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.c...

A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to study the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c, which is one of seven rocky planets orbiting an ultracool red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. The team found that the planet's atmosphere, if it exists at all, is extremely thin Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/discoveries/jwst-trappist1c-no-thick-atmosphere/.

The nine year survey recently completed by astronomers found one Earth-sized rogue planet and the second discovery of its kind. The study also analyzed the survey data and concluded that rogue planets are more abundant than all other planets in our galaxy. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/discoveries/trillions-of-worlds-without-stars/.

One of the big questions we are trying to answer in exoplanet astronomy is: Just how common are habitable planets? We already know that exoplanets themselves are extremely common: Astronomers tell us there are on average 1.6 planets for every star in our galaxy, so there are more planets than stars out there. But what about life? Habitable exoplanets? Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio...

Kelt-9b is a gas giant planet that orbits a star 670 light-years from Earth. It is so close to its star that its dayside temperature is 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit (4,300 degrees Celsius), hotter than some stars. This heat is so intense that it rips apart the molecules in the planet's atmosphere, including hydrogen gas. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/exoplanets/kelt9b-hottest-know...

HAT-P-67-b seems to fit the bill. It is 1,200 light years from Earth and has a radius that is a little over twice that of Jupiters’. It orbits its host star very closely, only 10 million kilometers away and has a year that is almost 5 days long. The star itself, HAT-P-67, is an F-type star that is one and a half times the mass of the Sun and about two and a half times larger Show Notes Available a...

The launch and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope in July 2022, marked the beginning of a new era in exoplanet science. Never before had humanity launched a more powerful and technologically advanced instrument into orbit that had the capabilities that JWST does. Show Notes Available at https://exoplanetradio.com/discoveries/jwst-takes-first-direct-image-exoplanet/.