In each filter image, the planet appears as a slightly differently shaped blob of light. The HIP 65426 b 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. Taking direct images of exoplanets is challenging because stars are so much brighter than planets. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated to launch later this decade, will demonstrate an even more advanced coronagraph. Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are both equipped with coronagraphs, which are sets of tiny masks that block out starlight, enabling Webb to take direct images of certain exoplanets like this one. Since HIP 65426 b is about 100 times farther from its host star than Earth is from the sun, it is sufficiently distant from the star that Webb can easily separate the planet from the star in the image. But Webb’s first capture of an exoplanet already hints at future possibilities for studying distant worlds. Researchers have been analyzing the data from these observations and are preparing a paper they will submit to journals for peer review. Webb’s view, at longer infrared wavelengths, reveals new details that ground-based telescopes would not be able to detect because of the intrinsic infrared glow of Earth’s atmosphere. Webb is an international mission led by NASA in collaboration with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).Īstronomers discovered the planet in 2017 using the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and took images of it using short infrared wavelengths of light. “This is a transformative moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy generally,” 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. It is young as planets go – about 15 to 20 million years old, compared with our 4.5-billion-year-old Earth.
The exoplanet in Webb’s image, called HIP 65426 b, is about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter, and these observations could help narrow that down even further.
I can’t wait to see what else we will learn about exoplanet atmospheres, chemistry, formation and evolution from upcoming and future JWST observations.” “The improvements in our understanding we are getting with JWST are so impressive. “This is just the beginning and it’s already exciting,” said Eileen Gonzales, 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Astronomy, in the College of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the observation team. This image shows the exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the James Webb Space Telescope.
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