The planet, dubbed TWA 7b, was found orbiting a young red dwarf star about 111 light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n
Scientists estimate the celestial body is roughly the same mass as that of Saturn<\/a>, or 100 times larger than Earth.<\/p>\n That makes TWA 7b the smallest exoplanet<\/a> ever directly observed – 10 times less massive than previous discoveries.<\/p>\n Although the JWST has discovered hundreds of exoplanets<\/a>, these have all been found indirectly by carefully watching the host star.<\/p>\n However, by simulating the effects of an eclipse, scientists were able to filter out the excess starlight and spot the exoplanet’s faint infrared glow.<\/p>\n Lead researcher Dr Anne-Marie Lagrange, an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory, told MailOnline: ‘Detecting exoplanets is not easy in general. Imaging them is even more challenging. This is why the lightest planets imaged before TWA 7b [were] massive giants, a few times Jupiter’s mass.’<\/p>\n The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured its first direct images of a never-before-seen exoplanet (pictured)<\/p>\n This image combines ground-based data from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and data from the JWST. The star has been hidden and marked with a white star symbol. The blue region shows the debris field spotted by the VLT and the orange circle is the exoplanet as seen by the JWST<\/p>\n Exoplanets, any planet outside the solar system, are small and appear to be extremely close to their star when seen from Earth.<\/p>\n Since they don’t give off much light of their own, this makes them extremely hard to see against the bright background.<\/p>\n Scientists normally find exoplanets using the ‘transit method’<\/a>, which involves watching the planet pass in front of its parent star and measuring how much the light dims.<\/p>\n However, 20 years ago Dr Lagrange and her colleagues developed a technique using a device called a ‘coronagraph’ to block out the light of distant stars.<\/p>\n This allowed her to see the rings of material floating around distant stars for the very first time.<\/p>\n Dr Lagrange and her colleagues decided to focus on stars that they could see from the ‘top-down’, looking down on the star’s pole to give a bird’s eye view of the planetary system.<\/p>\n They also chose to look for young stars since these have rings of material which are still glowing with heat, making them easier to spot.<\/p>\n Astronomers already knew that the 6.4-million-year-old TWA 7 star had three distinct rings of debris which could be seen from the top down – making it an ideal target for the JWST.\u00a0<\/p>\n Exoplanets (artist’s impression) are normally very hard to spot since they are drowned out by the light from their star\u00a0<\/p>\n By simulating the effects of an eclipse, the JWST revealed three distinct debris rings surrounding the star. In a ‘hole’ within the thinnest of these rings, the researchers also found a faint infrared source (red) which they believe is an exoplanet\u00a0<\/p>\n What do we know about TWA 7b? <\/p>\n Distance from Earth: 111 light-years\u00a0<\/p>\n Size: The same mass as Saturn<\/p>\n Distance from star: 52 times greater than the sun and Earth<\/p>\n Temperature:\u00a047\u00b0C (120\u00b0F)<\/p>\n Using the coronagraph mounted on the space telescope the researchers blocked out the light from the star and then removed any residual glow using image processing.<\/p>\n This revealed a faint source of infrared radiation within TWA 7’s debris field, about 50 times farther from the star than Earth is to the Sun.<\/p>\n This source was located in a ‘hole’ within one particularly narrow dust ring.<\/p>\n That told Dr Lagrange that she was likely looking at a young planet which was just starting to affect debris in its orbital path.<\/p>\n Although there is a very slim possibility that this signal could be a galaxy far in the background, initial analysis suggests it is likely to be a young, cold planet with a temperature of 47\u00b0C (120\u00b0F).<\/p>\n Dr Lagrange says: ‘Clearly it formed in a disk a few million years ago. It has gravitational interactions with the debris disk.’<\/p>\n Dr Lagrange also says that a thin ring of material forming around the planet’s orbit, known as a Trojan Ring, was predicted by models but had never been observed before.<\/p>\n This discovery is exciting because it is the first time an exoplanet the size of the planets in our solar system has been directly observed.<\/p>\n This is the smallest exoplanet ever directly observed but the JWST (pictured) has the potential to image planets just 10 per cent of Jupiter’s mass<\/p>\n Exoplanets Dr Lagrange has directly observed using Earth-based telescopes are giants, many times the mass of Jupiter.<\/p>\n But the JWST has the potential to spot exoplanets just a tenth of Jupiter’s mass.<\/p>\n Scientists could use these observations to help uncover the mysteries of how our own solar system formed.<\/p>\n However, Dr Lagrange says they cannot yet directly observe ‘Earth-like planets in the habitable zone’.<\/p>\n That means the hunt for life beyond our solar system will still need to wait for even more powerful telescopes<\/a> such as NASA’s proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99742513-14849249-image-a-11_1750932516922.jpg\")
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