Overview

• This represents the first exoplanet ever directly imaged by the James-Webb Space Telescope.
• TWA7b orbits a six-million-year-old star about 110 light-years from Earth within a dust-and-gas debris disk.
• The planet’s mass is estimated at about 100 Earth masses, or 0.3 times that of Jupiter, making it ten times lighter than any exoplanet previously imaged directly.
• Researchers deployed Webb’s eclipse-simulating coronagraph to block the star’s glare and capture the planet’s faint thermal emission.
• The success of Webb’s direct imaging suggests the telescope could soon spot and photograph smaller, Earth-sized worlds.