NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Captures the First Direct Image of its Exoplanet
NASA’s James Webb’s planetary telescope outside of the space system, this is the first time it has accomplished such a feat. This is a big deal, because exoplanets don’t glow, so researchers usually discover new planets through indirect methods, such as tracking shadows across host stars.
But Webber doesn’t have to do all of this. It directly captures the image of a. Scientists believe that the Earth is near the Saturn community, 100 light-years away from the Earth.
Earth is far beyond the stars, so its orbit lasts for hundreds of years. Planetary systems are believed to be 6 million years old, so we do have snapshots at the early stages of their development. Our sun is considered middle-aged, about 4.6 billion years old.
TWA 7 B is ten times smaller than any previous exoplanet, and can be observed directly using a telescope . Often, telescopes cannot see planets of this size because host stars mask the light that is directly observed.
The research team led by Dr. Anne-Marie Lagrange imitates the results of a solar eclipse by making attachments to the telescope. This reduces most of the light emitted from the stars, making it easier to observe surrounding objects.
The process allows the team to discover the Earth, which appears to be a source of light with a narrow ring of debris. Lagrange and her team did point out that the images still had a “small chance” to show the background galaxy, but the evidence “strongly pointed out” that the source was a previously undiscovered planet.
The first exoplanet was first discovered in 1992. Since then, it has been discovered. Similarly, the vast majority of these have not been captured directly by imaging.
This is just the latest discovery from our good friend James Webb. It is recently called the “Einstein Ring”, which is when the light of one galaxy is bent in another. Last year, the telescope was found.
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