Xinhua News Agency Beijing, September 2. NASA said on September 1 that the James Webb Space Telescope captured the first direct image of a exoplanet, .
NASA released news that the exoplanet, named HIP 65426 b, is an inhospitable gas giant . It is 6 to 12 times the mass of Jupiter , and is between 15 and 20 million years old, much younger than Earth.
This is an image of the universe taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on July 12. Xinhua News Agency (Photo courtesy of NASA)
astronomers discovered the planet in 2017 using the very large telescope built by European Southern Observatory at Chile . The Webb Telescope has now captured more details of the planet. These details cannot be captured from the ground due to interference from infrared radiation emitted by Earth's atmosphere. The challenge with
taking a direct image of HIP 65426 b is that it is much dimmer than the star it orbits, radiating less than 1/10,000th as bright in the near-infrared and less than 1/1000 in the mid-infrared one. Both the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) of the
Webb Telescope are equipped with a coronagraph. The device blocks the light from stars, allowing telescopes to image planets.
This is an image of the universe taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on July 12. Xinhua News Agency (Photo courtesy of NASA) The distance between
HIP 65426 b and the surrounding star is about 100 times the distance between the Earth and the sun. Because this distance is far enough, the planet and its star are individually visible in the images captured by the Webb telescope. The
Webb telescope "predecessor" Hubble Space Telescope has also taken direct images of exoplanets. Still, the Webb telescope's first direct image of an exoplanet is exciting, and it feels like digging for a treasure in space, said Alyn Carter, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led image analysis of HIP 65426 b.
Carter said the Webb telescope will capture more images of exoplanets, advancing astronomers' overall understanding of the physics, chemistry and formation of exoplanets.
"We may even discover planets we didn't know about before." (Osa)
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