exocast

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.

The exocast team interview cloud and dust expert Diana Powell (UC:Santa Cruz) about her work on protoplanetary disks and clouds in exoplanet atmospheres. The team also welcome Diana's exoplanet of choice, CI Tau b to their adopted planets.

For the first news segment of 2021 Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew talk through three papers from exoplanet science: Hugh covers the Direct confirmation of the radial-velocity planet β Pictoris c Hannah discusses 3D simulations of photochemical haze in the atmosphere of the hot Jupiter HD189733b And Andrew takes us through the science and drama of Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus Remember you ca...

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? The term Habitable Zone is often thrown around by scientists, the media, and in the general public. But what does the term really mean and how do we use it. Join us in what is at points a heated discussion on all the aspects...

The #ExoCup2020 was full of wonderful and baffling surprises. The Exocast team take a look at what went on, which planets triumphed or failed, and what you did to bring this competition to life. This year’s competition was a true reflection of 2020. We had election fatigue bloom into campaign videos. Exoplanets making their own twitter accounts to ask for your vote. YouTubers, live streamers, and...

Exocast-47b a look at the break down of the #Exocup2020

This month Hugh, Andrew, and Hannah talk to astrophysicist, folklorist, and science communicator Moiya McTier . Moiya is an NSF graduate researcher at Columbia University in New York City and works to understand exoplanets from a galactic perspective. The Exocast team talks to Moiya about work from measuring the topography on an exoplanet by the effect that mountains and other features have in tra...

This month Hannah, Hugh, and Andrew go through the slew of exoplanet papers from discoveries, characterisation, and astrobiology including the following: Discoveries: Buzzword alert! A mini-Neptune and Venus-zone planet in the radius valley orbiting an M2 star has been validated with the Habitable-zone planet finder. Four jovian sized worlds discovered around the low luminosity stars Wendelstein-1...

In this episode, the team sits down to ponder the question how many exoplanets are there? At first, this might seem like a relatively straightforward question that can be answered by NASA’s Exoplanet Archive , but it becomes more daunting when considering, for example, the biases and limitations of our instruments that affect our ability to even detect and characterise many planets, how we define...

This month Andrew, Hannah, and Hugh chat with Dr Batiste Journaux (Research Associate in the Department of Earth and Space Science at the University of Washington) about all things icy and the role of different ices in our Solar System and exoplanets. Baptiste is a multidisciplinary scientist whose research spans the lab, fieldwork, and modelling and software development, we talk about how these a...

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),...

On this episode we ask the question: Can we ever image the surface of an exoplanet? Once we get all the definitions out of the way, like ‘what do we mean by map?’ and ‘what do we mean by surface?’, we take a deep dive into the realm of instrumentation to discuss the possibilities and limitations of our upcoming and near-future exoplanet imaging technologies. We touch on some of the avenues that as...

In this round-up of the month’s notable exoplanetary exploits, we cover all the headlines including: Proxima c (not) being directly imaged with Sphere – WASP-4b’s accelerating orbit – two new but very different sub-Saturn-mass planets – windspeed measurements on Brown Dwarfs – plus the influence of Gin & Vampires on exoplanets (from a couple of results very early this month). Also this month,...

This month Hannah, Hugh, and Andrew chat with Dr Sarah Casewell about her work on irradiated brown dwarfs. Sarah is an Earnest Rutherford Fellow at the University of Leicester where she has spent her career since undergrad. We chat all things brown dwarfs and what makes the irradiated ones so special to study. Sarah also shares her journey in academia from PhD, to postdoc, manager, and now fellow,...

In the final of three mini-exocasts we will release this month, we cover some of the notable happenings in exoplanet science over the past month. On this episode we cover new planets from the TESS mission , a novel technique for detecting exoplanets using radio emission , and the end of the very productive KELT survey after 17 years. We also revisit K2-18b , which hit the exoplanet headlines last...

On this episode we ask the question: Can we EVER travel to an exoplanet? This has two interpretations. First who is we, and second what does ever mean? To think about this question we discuss the sheer vastness of space and the distances to our nearest planets, the speeds we would need to achieve to get there, and the technology we can use. What limitations do we have, what resources can we use, a...

This month Hugh, Hannah, and Andrew chat with Natalia Guerrero , who works in the office of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is run out of MIT’s Kavli Institute. Natalia is the manager of the TESS objects of interest (TOI) catalogue, part of the communications office, and was one of the engineers who did the camera testing prior to launch. We talk about how TESS looks for pl...

Our final bite-size episode for this month features Andrew, Hannah, and Hugh chatting with Dr Stephen Kane , Associate Professor of Planetary Astrophysics in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Riverside. Stephen tells us a little about his need to use all exoplanet detection techniques, his love for our hot and cloudy next-doo...

In the second of three mini-casts this month, Hannah, Hugh, and Andrew gather around the virtual table to discuss that weird and wonderful molecule: H 2 O! The importance of water to our lives is undeniable, but in this show we chat about what makes water so chemically unusual and important in the study of astrophysics, exoplanet astronomy, and astrobiology.

In the first of three mini-casts this month, we discuss all the recent exoplanet news from December 2019 & January 2020. That includes a temperate world around TOI-700d ; Proxima Centauri c ; three new planetary systems losing their atmospheres found with RVs; Circumbinary planets in Kepler and TESS; Iron in WASP-121b ; Two different phase curves from TESS; and the atmosphere of Beta Pic b in...

0:03:12 – Hannah chats with Dr Erin May a postdoctoral researcher at JHU’s Applied Physics Lab about her transition from extragalactic research into exoplanets, running an observing campaign as a grad student, and how to apply global circulation models to small exoplanets. 0:23:54 – Hugh discusses strange transits and the weirdest phenomenon observed with transiting exoplanet surveys from possible...

Hugh chats with his colleague at the University of Bern Dr. Brett Morris about starspots and their effect on exoplanet detection and characterisation, his experience with an astrobiology mission right here on Earth, and he recounts an exciting day in Bern earlier this year. Andrew discusses the labels we apply to the worlds we find, and the gang debates the usefulness of the terms for exoplanet sc...

On the 39th episode of exocast: Andrew chats with UC Irvine’s radial velocity expert (and occasional planet-killer) Dr Paul Robertson in the Exocast Studio. Hannah outlines how the 2019 ExoCup is going to play out, and Hugh performs the draw for the first round “live” on air. And Hugh reports from the Exocast news desk on arXiv’s wackiest exoplanet papers from the past month, plus we chat about Ma...

On this podcast : Hannah takes us to the Exoclimes V conference in Oxford to ask people what they most want to learn about outside of their area of study. Hugh details the four competing missions up for the NASA decadal: Lynx, Origins, HabEx, and LUVOIR And Andrew takes us through the most recent exoplanet news, including a discussion on the press sensation surrounding the discovery of water in th...

Quizmaster Hugh takes to the conference hall at the 1st TESS Science Conference (TESSCon) to test the attendees’ exoplanet knowledge! Andrew compiles a (not very) top secret report-out on planetary protection. And Hannah covers this month’s news including the detection of an exoplanet magnetic field, new planets from TESS, a Kepler-load of 350 new candidates, as well as advances in exoplanet popul...