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-1b and 2b
A habitable-zone planet in Kepler-160?
The finally published discovery of AU Mic b
Discovery of Gliese 887b & c
Characterisation:
Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b got two papers this month. One looking for Cr and V, and the other cataloging an array of metals in its atmosphere.
Hubble WFC3 IR grism spectroscopy of the warm Neptune HD 106315c
Another search for TiO in the atmosphere of WASP-33b.
Hubble PanCET program has a new transmission spectrum out of HAT-P-32b
TESS phasecurve observations of the brown dwarf KELT-1b
The most likely clouds muting and obscuring molecular features in transmission spectra are composed of magnesium silicates.
3D GCM models to map the formation of hydrocarbon haze in the atmosphere of WASP-43b
Astrobiology:
Mineral dust increases the habitability of terrestrial planets but confounds biomarker detection
The Effect Of Varying Atmospheric Pressure Upon Habitability And Biosignatures Of Earth-like Planets
Reports from the Goldschmidt conference
and… The strangely precise conclusion that there are 36 intelligent civilisations in out galaxy.