Webb telescope Discovers New Exoplanet in Landmark Direct imaging – A Giant Leap in the Search for Worlds Beyond Our Own
WASHINGTON – In a groundbreaking discovery, the james Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged a previously unkown exoplanet, marking a significant milestone in the ongoing quest to understand planets beyond our solar system. Since its deployment in 2021, Webb has been gathering invaluable data on exoplanets, but this is the first time it has identified a planet not previously known [[source]].
The newly discovered planet is a gas giant approximately the size of Saturn, orbiting a star smaller than our sun located roughly 110 light-years away in the Antlia constellation.A light-year, for context, is the distance light travels in one year – a staggering 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) [[source]].
Direct Imaging: A Rare Achievement
While over 5,900 exoplanets have been identified as the 1990s, the vast majority have been detected indirectly, through methods like observing the slight dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of it (the transit method). Directly imaging exoplan
