JWST’s First Direct Image of an Exoplanet

The James Webb Space Telescope captured its first direct image of an exoplanet, named TWA 7 b.

Astronomers used a coronagraph to block starlight and advanced processing to reveal a faint infrared source near star TWA 7.

TWA 7 b is about the mass of Saturn, sits roughly 50 times Earth’s distance from its star, and lies in a gap of the star’s debris disk.

There is a 0.34% chance the signal is a background galaxy, but models and observations strongly support a planet discovery.

This achievement demonstrates JWST’s ability to directly image low-mass exoplanets and study how planetary systems form.