James Webb space telescope images exoplanets directly for the first time
The James Webb Space Telescope already made numerous discoveries. Now, for the first time, an exoplanet was imaged directly, with more smaller ones to follow.
Image of TWA 7 with the dust rings (blue) and the suspected exoplanet TWA 7b (top right)
(Image: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, A.M. Lagrange, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb))
A research team from France has succeeded in directly imaging an exoplanet for the first time with the James Webb Space Telescope. If this is confirmed, it would be a first for the new device, but the hope is that further evidence will follow. The exoplanet was discovered near a star called TWA 7, which is around 111 light years away from us. The exoplanet is therefore about 50 astronomical units away from its star and has about the mass of Saturn. Overall, the most modern space telescope can detect exoplanets with only a third of this mass.
On the way to imaging Earth-sized exoplanets
As the research team led by Anne-Marie Lagrange from the Paris Observatory explains, they used a coronagraph on the MIRI instrument of the space telescope for their work. This allows the distant star itself to be dimmed while its immediate surroundings remain visible. They took advantage of this as a particularly worthwhile target because we can see the system of TWA 8 directly from above. There are three rings of dust and a conspicuous gap in one of them. This is precisely where they discovered the exoplanet, which is probably a comparatively young celestial body. Because it has not yet completely cooled down and is around 47 degrees Celsius, it is easier to recognize in the infrared spectrum.
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The discovery is another milestone for the James Webb Space Telescope because it confirms that the device can find smaller celestial bodies than other instruments. “This telescope allows us to image planets with masses similar to those of the planets in the solar system,” says co-author Mathilde Malin from the Space Telescope Science Institute. The discovery therefore paves the way for the direct imaging of exoplanets with a mass similar to that of the Earth. However, this is still some way off; the exoplanet now presented has a mass of around 100 Earth masses. The discovery is presented in the journal Nature.
(mho)
