s2e4: Exoplanet Extrapolation

We know, we know — we did exoplanets last time. But that was the current state-of-play and a 2024 exoplanets wrapped update. In this episode, Emily looks to the future! She does a deep dive into the promise of the just wonderful JWST, as it prods exoplanets in ways they’ve never been prodded before.

On the web: syzygy.fm

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Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.

Some of the things we talk about in this episode:

• The JWST mission

• The Transit method

• Exoplanet Phase Curves

• Exoplanet GJ1214b and the phase curve paper

• Transmission spectroscopy

• Exoplanet WASP 39b

• Direct imaging of exoplanets

• Exoplanet HIP65426b

• The JWST first release images

• The WASP 96-b “dodgy graph” (see Brundsen, 2025)

• Exoplanet WASP 43b’s day and night (and the Nature paper)

• The Trappist 1 system