James Webb Telescope captures first direct image of possible exoplanet TWA 7 b
For the first time, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a direct image of what scientists believe is an exoplanet—TWA 7 b—orbiting a young star located about 111 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra.
The discovery, published in the journal Nature, marks a significant milestone for the JWST, which until now had primarily confirmed or studied exoplanets using indirect methods. Unlike typical techniques that rely on the dimming of a star's light when a planet passes in front of it, this new detection used JWST's coronagraph to block out the overwhelming glare of the star TWA 7, revealing a faint source of infrared light in its surrounding debris disk.
'This is the first time Webb has directly imaged an exoplanet, and the result is incredibly exciting,' says Anne-Marie Lagrange, lead author and astrophysicist at the French National Center for Scientific Research. 'The planet's position aligns exactly with predictions based on previous observations of gaps in the debris disk.'
The object, TWA 7 b, is estimated to have a mass similar to Saturn's and a temperature around 120 degrees Fahrenheit. It resides within one of the disk's three dust rings, about 50 times farther from its star than Earth is from the Sun. The odds of it being a background galaxy are slim—only 0.34%—making it a strong planetary candidate.
What makes this discovery even more remarkable is that TWA 7 b is roughly ten times lighter than any exoplanet previously imaged directly. It may also be the first planet observed actively shaping its star's surrounding debris disk—an insight that sheds light on how planetary systems like our own form and evolve.
To confirm their findings, Lagrange's team ran simulations of the TWA 7 system. The models mirrored the Webb images almost exactly, reinforcing their confidence in the planetary nature of the object.
'This discovery is a testament to the power of JWST's instruments,' says co-author Mathilde Malin of the Space Telescope Science Institute. 'It opens the door to studying exoplanets that were previously out of reach, both in terms of their mass and distance from their host stars.'
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