Washington: The James Webb Space Telescope, operated by the American space agency NASA, has revealed the first direct photograph of an exoplanet that is located outside of our solar system.
Various images of the exoplanet HIP 65426 b were sent back to Earth by various instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope.
Exoplanets are planets that exist outside our solar system.
This exoplanet is a ball of gas that is 12 times larger than Jupiter and is located 385 light-years from Earth.
The findings are part of an ongoing study and have not yet been published in a scientific journal, but NASA shared the preliminary results in a blog post on Thursday.
Sasha Hinckley, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter, said in a statement that this moment is revolutionary not just for the web, but for astronomy in general.
HIP 65426 b was first discovered by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. The telescope saw the planet in short-wavelength infrared light because Earth’s atmosphere blocks longer wavelengths.
Being in space, the web has easy access to long wavelengths and can see planets at great distances.
The central star of HIP 65426 b is 100 times more massive than our Sun.
