James Webb Photographed an Exoplanet for the First Time!

Sent into space on December 25, 2021. James Webb, the most advanced space telescope ever, broke new ground for himself today. The European Space Agency shared the photo of the first exoplanet, the planet outside our Solar System, taken with the James Webb Space Telescope. It was announced that the planet is 6-8 times more massive than Jupiter.

According to the shared information, the name of the planet that James Webb took to his lens was “HIP 652426 b”. The age of the planet was determined to be 15-20 million years. In other words, the planet is much too young, even a baby, compared to our 4.5 billion-year-old planet. The planet was first discovered in 2017 through the Spectro-Polarimetric High Contrast Exoplanet Survey (SPHERE).

Here is the first exoplanet observed by James Webb:

• Photographs of the exoplanet with four different filters applied. Click here to view in full size. (2.1MB)

Observing exoplanets is extremely challenging due to the brightness of the star in the star system these planets are in. But the shared exoplanet observed today is 100 times further from its star than Earth is from the Sun. This allows the planet to be easily distinguished from the brightness of the star by James Webb.

The European Space Agency shared that the exoplanet is gaseous and does not include any rocks. Therefore, it was stated that the planet is not a habitable planet. The agency also announced that scientists continue to analyze the results obtained from the observations, and that a study on this subject is being prepared.

To check out the other beauties shared by James Webb: