Exocast-62c: Exoplanet News

The latest news hot off the Exocast news desk for July/August 2022, another exciting month for exoplanet science:

• Andrew takes some time to discuss the life and influence of Dr James Lovelock, the co-originator the Gaia Hypothesis, who died recently. His news this month takes the form of two independent but neatly connected papers on the topic of ‘chirality’: ‘The Chiral Puzzle of Life’ by Globus and Blandford, and ‘Directional Aspects of Vegetation Linear and Circular Polarization Biosignatures‘ by Patty et al.
• Hannah summarises ‘Chemical Abundances for 25 JWST Exoplanet Host Stars with KeckSpec’ by Polanski et al. in anticipation of the publication of a larger elemental abundance catolog derived from Keck/HIRES optical spectra.
• Hugh covers Zhang et al‘s ‘Detection of Atmospheric Escape from Four Young Mini Neptunes’ that details the smallest and youngest planets for which escaping atmospheres have been detected, with implications for the exoplanet ‘radius valley’.

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Exocast is edited by composer/muscian Fergus Hall (https://fergushallcomposer.com) and supported in part by funding from the University of Bristol via H.Wakeford starter funds.