James Webb Space Telescope scripts history with its 1st exoplanet image; See pic

After peering through thick cosmic dust to pinpoint new stars, the James Webb Space Telescope has produced its first direct image of an exoplanet. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), one of the developers of Webb, this exoplanet dubbed HIP 65426 b is about six to twelve times the mass of Jupiter and is located about 385 light-years from Earth. Interestingly, it is estimated to have been born just 15 to 20 million years ago, making it one of the youngest exoplanets ever found. 

More about the exoplanet and the new picture

(HIP 65426 b photographed across four filters; Image; NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI)

The new images were taken through four different filters, two each in Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Both these instruments are equipped with coronagraphs, which are sets of tiny masks that block out starlight, enabling Webb to take direct images of certain exoplanets. In each of the filters, the planet is showcased in different colours and the image reveals new details that ground-based telescopes would not be able to detect because of the intrinsic infrared glow of Earth’s atmosphere.

Notably, this is not the first time astronomers have observed this exoplanet as it has been previously scrutinised after its discovery in 2017 using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. 

Apart from its size and age, this gas giant, which has no rocky surface, is different from Earth in various aspects. Astronomers have found that it is orbiting its host star, named HIP 65426, about 100 times the distance between our planet and the sun. Photographing this exoplanet comes as a huge milestone as imaging them is extremely difficult owing to their extremely low luminosity compared to the host star. 

ESA says that the exoplanet is around 1,00,000 times fainter than its host star in the near-infrared, and a few thousand times fainter in the mid-infrared. The agency points out that the white star depicted next to the planet in the filter is the location of the host star from the exoplanet. 

"Researchers have been analysing the data from these observations and are preparing a paper they will submit to journals for peer review," ESA said in a statement. "But Webb's first capture of an exoplanet already hints at future possibilities for studying distant worlds."