The Webb Telescope captured the first image of an exoplanet

Ezgzoplanet HIP 65426 b was discovered in 2017 by the European Southern Observatory’s VLT (Very Large Telescope) telescope in Chile. The first images were taken using short infrared waves, and more details were out of scientists’ reach due to the inner infrared glow of Earth’s atmosphere.

Thanks to the Webb telescope, it was possible to capture images using longer infrared wavelengths, which revealed new details. HIP 65426 b has a mass of about 6-12 masses that of Jupiter, but observations can narrow the range further. It is also very young, only 15-20 million years old. As a reminder, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Its distance from its parent star is about 100 times greater than the distance from the Earth to the Sun. This allows Webb to easily distinguish between a planet and a star.

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Such a clear picture of a planet outside our solar system is possible thanks to dentist A group of masks mounted on each instrument blocking the light from the host star HIP 65426. Its location is shown by a small white star in each image. The additional elements around the planet in the NIRCam images are artifacts of the telescope’s optics, not actual objects.

Sasha Hinckley is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Together with an international team, he conducts observations using the Webb Telescope.

Pictures were taken with tools Nircam (near infrared camera), i Mary (Mid Infrared Tool) – Mid Infrared Tool. Thanks to the crown layouts, they can take direct pictures of the exoplanets.

The image provided by NASA shows Image of the exoplanet HIP 65426 b as seen through four light filters. Purple and blue represent the image from the NIRCam tool, and yellow and red represent the MIRI tool. The changing appearance is caused by differences in the capture of light by different instruments.

The stars are brighter than the planets. HIP 65426 b is about 10,000 times fainter than its parent star in the near infrared and several thousand times fainter in the mid-infrared.

“Getting this image was like digging up a cosmic treasure. All I saw at first was starlight, but through careful image processing, I was able to remove that light,” said Dr. Arryn Carter, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the image analysis. and discover the planet.

NASA says that while this isn’t the first image of an exoplanet taken from space — their live images have already been taken by the Hubble telescope — it’s The route points to Webb’s exploration of the outer planets.

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