March Video --- exoplanets!

I don't see any comments mentioning you made a booboo in your presentation. Trappist-1 is not one of the many examples of systems with hot Jupiters, aka super-puffs (which I much prefer), orbiting absurdly close to their star.

You're also doing the singular-plural mixup with "biases": "This is a biases". "This is a ... " is a sentence describing a singular thing and grammatically, it needs a substantive in the singular to complete it. One bias, two biases.

I have a question. Is it possible that some "star" system has a massive object at the centre that is still too small to become a star, because there's no fusion happening? This would result in a "dark" system which we probably had a hard time to detect because it emits very little radiation.

4 light years is not impossible. Now, yes. Forever, no. Come on, Angela. Realism is fine, really important, I get it. But within the next few hundred years, we could build ships that travel that distance in a few dozen years, long deceleration included, perhaps even generational ships. Mindblowing, but not impossible. I wouldn't want to make that trip, but there might be people who want to take this on. Maybe you could do a video on traveling space? Giving an overview of the actual hurdles, even if we already had an engine that can accelerate up to 0.3 c. Like, fuel, food, medical care, loneliness, communication with earth, emergencies, contingency, landing, return fuel ... the redundancy in human knowledge and expertise alone would be staggering. If you only have two astronomers and both die ... or only one doctor and one nurse? That alone would be such a huge risk. And independent from the logistics side, I guess we'd never want to do that just to see whatever possibly habitable planet from up close. The goal would need to be to either travel to another intelligent species (very unlikely by this point, because we / they might have discovered each other already), or the goal would need to be to try and erect a colony, as a new permanent habitat for humans.

We want to hear your opinion on fast food!

KGBFOAM

As far as atmospheric measurements from transits, it goes back much further than the couple of JWST papers linked above: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06823 was published in 2008 and there have been many more observations since then. Enough that Tinetti is now PI on ESA's ARIEL mission, scheduled for 2029 launch (and actually funded). Swain is PI of the US contribution, and I think Vasisht is a Co-I on at least the US part. It will get spectra on ~1000 planets (I think Uranus/Neptune are the lower limit) and be complementary to what gets done with JWST. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will also have a coronagraph that can do direct imaging on super-earths and launches in 2027.

Rewatching this and realized that David Braben got his procedurally generated galaxies so right (in 1993, so mostly luck) in Elite 2 . I used to think that "most stars have a bunch of planets" thing was over the top. And even more, you still had to look hard for habitable ones once outside the story area.

Speaking of JWST: The Cool Worlds Lab (at Columbia Univ.) was recently granted time to look for, not exo-planets, but exo-moons. (After being rejected a year ago, which made them very sad, but they tried again.) Prof. Kipping made a video about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sv_sa_tLPg

I really liked this video. I'd love to see more lectures with your updated thoughts since you last taught the topic

I never heard of anyone claiming they found a habitable exo-planet - only "in the habitable zone" which to my understanding means the temperature is in the range of liquid water

Honestly I think I enjoy hear you ramble (meant positive!) about any topic you are interested in

"No one wants to hear my opinions on fast food." Deeply disagree! I've mentioned in comments on other posts but imho your hook isn't *just* physics, it's also like, to me, Physics Breadtube. Like, the ability to Do Science is something that is not trivially linked to a person's history and material circumstances, and by definition talking about your life is talking about the life of scientists. Also: youtube parasocial entertainment. Part of the reason many people watch (or at least part of the reason *I* watch and I believe myself not to be a unique weirdo in this regard) is to see more of you. There are lots of other physics channels out there, but I'm watching *this* channel for the same reason I watch Philosophy Tube, hbomberguy, Contrapoints, FD Signifier et al. I enjoy the content *and* I enjoy the presenter. I get maybe not a vid for main channel but certainly the Patron would be interested in fast food. :)

All Angela's videos go straight to youtube!

Is that a Dale Chihuly seaform on the shelf by chance?

"No one wants to hear my thoughts on fast food" Nah, definitely want to hear those too now

Thanks for the great video! But I am gonna send you all my atheist prayers and wishes and patreon dollars so you can take MORE VACATIONS omg. A human needs a big vacation ( >2 weeks) at minimum twice a year.

"The Hot Jupiters" would be a good name for Dr Collier's backing band

Next video poll will for sure contain "Thoughts on fast food."

Good video! Back when I took a class on exoplanets in undergrad, almost all of them had been detected via radial velocity with maybe like two or three that had been detected via transit. It's pretty neat to see how far we've come.

Just like several others I would gladly pay to hear what you have to say about the fast food industry! These physics videos are good enough for the main channel, let's get unhinged Angela ranting on the Patreon!

New patron. Really liked the video, nice work. The variety of the content is great. I very much appreciate the warmth and passion that your style delivers. If youtube videos were plotted with friendly at one end and corporate on the other end, yours are pleasingly at the friendly end. I suspect if you ever release a video topic that I'm not into, I'd still watch/listen as the enjoyment from the delivery and style is so high. Keep up the good work.

Yeehaw! Angelia’s choice and she goes for free floating balls smaller than brown dwarves, wild times!

Thanks for talking through 'habitable' and how many variations there can be for something we just don't know. As you say you see it all the time on the news and on Youtube, and mostly I roll my eyes because it does not mean what they think. Anyway, looking forward to merch. ... And I think 'Hot Jupiter' would make a good patrion level...

The complaint about artists' renditions at 18:30 reminded me of All Yesterdays (a paleoart book)

Just to confirm, when you say that planets require metals to form, you are talking about "astronomy metals", as in stuff heavier than helium?

Great video! My only concern in astronomy is how we will overcome our inability to find and track truly earth-like planets. G-Type main sequence stars with planets Earth’s mass, with Earth’s orbit distance and transit time. Who is working on this problem? What is the actual hurdles to doing this? Who is stopping us from doing this and why? Why isn’t all of our money going into figuring this out? Why do anything in astronomy and cosmology and all that sky lookin’ aside from this anyway? Isn’t this the only thing that matters? When will people realize this is the only thing that matters? Also, in the realm of the hypothetical, I think we’re all familiar with the Drake equation here. Has anyone considered a sort of… inverse Drake equation? I’ve seen a lot of really important science people debate the merits of the idea that our radio waves might could get detected by aliens. But aren’t we… visible to aliens? If they just look good enough, and are good enough at looking? The odds of life existing in the universe is high. So what are the odds that a technologically advanced alien race knows about Earth’s eco system? Our Industrial Revolution has been going on for 200 years, basically a massive broadcast that intelligent life is on the planet. Who might have heard that broadcast by now? If people are worried about radio signals, which fade pretty quickly anyway, why aren’t people worried about our light in the same way?

Really great video! Super-interesting topic and very understandable even to someone like me. Which brings up a question: I found this month's public video quite a bit more opaque than this one since it involves so much math. Is it in your best interest to be hiding on Patreon this video which is much more suitable for a wide audience? I'd be inclined to swap them. It doesn't matter to me since I'm on Patreon and get them all. But it's something to think about.

To remember the order of the main sequence stars: Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me right now, smack - OBAFGKMRNS.

Thanks for the video! Oh, and feel free about videos on non-physics/math subjects, especially if you have some unique insight through personal experience. Or maybe when you're just particularly passionate about a subject. Variety is the spice of life :)

Video won’t play on IOS for me. Anyone else? I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app. I have turned it off and on off and on again. Angela’s other videos are playing just fine, as are other creator’s. It’s only this one video I can’t get to work.

Thank you for this video! I still remember Carl Sagan teaching an elementary school class about how in the future astronomers might detect exoplanets -- he had models that simulated the wobble, and blocking the light of the star. At the time (1980) this was just theory. I like to think that some of those students became exoplanet researchers. Also, to follow up on my comment from last month, I finished watching Station Eleven, and it was AWESOME. Seriously it was like the best thing I've seen in a long time. Everybody should watch it. It's SO GOOD. Thank you for the recommendation!!

My takes about this video: 1 - For me "Angela's choice" means literally anything you would like to talk about. I actually think every patreon video should be "Angela's, choice", I believe it would be a nice space to talk about those alternative subjects that maybe wouldn't fit in the main channel, like your take on fast food, we are not being sarcastic when we say we actually want to hear your views about it. Of course you can still poll every month if you want some inspirations and ideas; 2 - Very interesting video-class by the way, and it is kinda sad that there won't actually be the next class. Exoplanets will always be interesting, maybe a video about how and what results could we get when we start getting the first papers about JWST observations of these planets, what can we expect from them; 3 - Whenever the merch comes out, will them be shippable world-wide? The only times I dislike living in Latin America is when it is hard to get some niche products, but one can always hope.

I would buy the coffee mug!

The kind of merch I'm looking forward is a badge. (Like a Baby Yoda badge, or Batman, or just "relax".) Probably it's too 80s for the masses, but if you feel like doing some random outstanding artwork, then just an idea ...

yeay for the merch! :) (and the video!)

I love exoplanets, thx for the upload. As super-Earths and mini-Neptunes are the most common type of planets, what would that mean for their escape velocities? Could they ever leave their planet if habitable? Or is it a Hotel California?

oh gosh, this brings back memories. My mom became friends with one of the big early exoplanet researchers (fortunately not *that* one) whose child was in my class, so for like 3 years around middle school age I was regularly taken to public lectures on the subject and was kept reasonably up to date on the progress of the science. (This was all part of my family's failed plot to get me to become a physicist.) Having not really engaged with this world in more than 20 years, seeing the word "imaging" on the list of discovery methods is so mindblowing. In those last-millennium lectures, the exoplanet researchers always devoted some time to arguing against the idea that planets are rare. Maybe they got a lot of pushback to that effect when applying for grants? Anyway, I always got the impression they felt that "planets are rare" was actually the majority view among the larger scientific community -- obviously not among exoplanet researchers, of course. I'm sure that changed pretty quickly as the discoveries started pouring in.

What's exoplanets? Is that some kind of dark matter?

For question 1 - C, in what way do these large scale stellar events impact the measured red- or blue-shift? The only things I can think of are: - A large solar flare slinging off a significant enough amount of mass/kinetic energy to cause a wobble. But, if that is even possible, that would be a short, permanent change right? - A stellar event that changes the makeup of the outer layer of the star, changing the emission spectrum of the star. I imagine this would show as a gradual increase in intensity of spectral lines, not a wavelength change of the measured spectral lines, as would be the case for red- or blue-shift

Video viewing on Patreon is turned off so I watched on YouTube. And yes I would be interested in your views on fast food.

It seems there are two papers claiming the detection of molecules in transit spectra. - "Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere." Nature 614, no. 7949 (2023): 649-652. - Bell, Taylor J., et al. "Methane throughout the atmosphere of the warm exoplanet WASP-80b." Nature 623.7988 (2023): 709-712.

Is anyone else unable to load the video?

Angela, thanks, your choice worked for me. In particular, the direct imaging of HR 8799 starting at 27:17 is the most amazing thing I have seen in a while. Alas, it seems that we are doomed to view but never visit. Perhaps that is the destiny of all sufficiently advanced civilisations: they become interstellar voyeurs, maybe via their own https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens .

Merch with “ooshy gooshy plasma” reference please 🙂

Wow, we got "wee-woo wee-woo" and "do do do dit do do do" in one video. It isn't just the topic. It's more about the take on the topic and the presentation. YouTube: The REAL Danger of Going Viral on YouTube https://youtu.be/tDKLzsOiDlM

"No one wants to hear my opinion on fast food." You are probably laughing at this, but I do.

I'd love to hear of your thoughts on fast food!

Yes!!