Astronomers have captured the first direct image of an exoplanet with the James Webb Space Telescope.
The exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, is a gas giant with about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter. The planet, called HIP 65426 b, is about 15 to 20 million years old — just a baby planet compared to Earth, which is 4.5 billion years old.
It is located about 385 light years from Earth.
The planet can be seen in four different bands of infrared light captured by Webb’s various instruments. Webb sees the universe in infrared light that is invisible to the human eye—making it the perfect space observatory for revealing details about distant worlds.
“This is a transformative moment not just for Webb, but for astronomy as a whole,” Sasha Hinckley, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.
Hinckley led the observations as part of an international collaboration.
The exoplanet was first discovered in 2017 using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and its SPHERE instrument located in Chile. The instrument then took images of the planet at short infrared wavelengths, but Webb’s ability to see at longer infrared wavelengths could shed light on new details.
Scientists are analyzing Webb’s data on HIP 65426 b, and an upcoming study will be submitted to journals for peer review.
The exoplanet is about 100 times farther from its host star than Earth is from the sun, which allowed Webb and his instruments to separate the planet from its star. Some of Webb’s instruments are armed with coronagraphs, or masks, that can block starlight, allowing the telescope to take direct images of exoplanets.
Stars are much brighter than planets, and in this case HIP 65426 b is more than 10,000 times fainter than its host star in the near-infrared.
“Getting this image felt like digging for cosmic treasure,” Arin Carter, the image’s lead analyst and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement. “Initially all I could see was light from the star, but with careful image processing I was able to remove that light and detect the planet.”
While the Hubble Space Telescope was the first to capture direct images of exoplanets, Webb’s infrared exploration of exoplanets is just beginning. The telescope has already shared the first spectrum of an exoplanet, detecting a water signature in its atmosphere and finding the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet’s atmosphere.
And the space observatory began making scientific observations only this summer.
“I think the most exciting thing is that we’re just getting started,” Carter said. “There are many more images of exoplanets to come that will shape our overall understanding of their physics, chemistry and formation.” We may even discover previously unknown planets.”
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