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James Webb Space Telescope Directly Images Its First Exoplanet
- In 2025, the James Webb Space Telescope achieved a milestone by capturing the first direct image of a newly discovered exoplanet, TWA 7 b, which orbits a young star approximately 111 light-years from Earth.
- Researchers focused on young stars like TWA 7, which has a debris disk with three rings, to find planets in gaps where they might hide.
- TWA 7 b has a mass similar to Saturn, about 30 percent that of Jupiter, and orbits its star at a distance approximately 50 times greater than the space between Earth and the Sun.
- Anne-Marie Lagrange explained that their certainty about the planet’s existence came from JWST’s coronagraph, which effectively blocks the star’s bright light, allowing faint nearby objects to be detected.
- This discovery marks the lowest-mass exoplanet directly imaged and suggests advancing telescopes could find even smaller, Earth-like worlds in the future.
90 Articles
90 Articles
The odd new worlds we've discovered in 2025
Astronomers have discovered over 100 new alien worlds so far this year — some many light-years away from Earth — that showcase the vast diversity and drama of planetary systems across space. The number of confirmed exoplanets — planets that don't orbit the sun — has tipped 5,900, according to NASA, with thousands of additional candidates under review. All these worlds exist in our galaxy, though scientists believe they detected one planet outsid…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has found its first exoplanet after three years of operation. Located about 111 light-years from Earth, TWA 7b is also the smallest extrasolar body ever directly imaged.
The telescope has captured convincing evidence of the existence of a planet with a mass similar to that of Saturn.
Humanity has now taken its first significant steps towards conquering space. In our photo gallery, we tell the story of this process through spectacular footage. Check it out!
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