Webb takes first direct image of a planet outside of our solar system

Astronomers using NASA's premium space-based observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, have taken a direct image of an exoplanet -a planet outside our solar system.

Named HIP 65426 b, the gas giant exoplanet is about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter and about 15 to 20 million years old - much younger than our Earth which is 4.5 billion years old. It was discovered in 2017 using the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.

Webb reveals new details that ground-based telescopes would not be able to detect because of the intrinsic infrared glow of Earth's atmosphere, thanks to the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) onboard the telescope. Both NIRCam and MIRI are equipped with coronagraphs, which enable the telescope to take direct images of certain exoplanets like this one.

Direct imaging of exoplanets is a challenging task because stars are so much brighter than planets. In this case, the planet is more than 10,000 times fainter than its host star in the near-infrared, and a few thousand times fainter in the mid-infrared. 

"This is a transformative moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy generally. It was really impressive how well the Webb coronagraphs worked to suppress the light of the host star," said Sasha Hinkley, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, who led these observations with a large international collaboration.

The above image shows HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from Webb. They look different because of the ways the different Webb instruments capture light.

Each of Webb's 4 views is at a different wavelength of infrared light. The white star is the location of the host star. Its light is blocked by Webb's coronagraphs, or tiny masks. The bar shapes in the NIRCam views are artifacts of the telescope optics, not physical objects. pic.twitter.com/RZGBioV4Qb

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) September 1, 2022

For the unversed, Webb is an international mission led by NASA in collaboration with its partners, European Space Agency (ESA) Canadian Space Agency (CSA).