Washington. the space telescope james webb took its first image of an exoplanet, reported the United States Space Agency (NASA, for its acronym in English).
The planet, located outside the solar system and named HIP 65426 b, is a gas giant without a rocky surface that could not be habitable.
“We are at a turning point, not only for james webbbut also for astronomy in general,” said University of Exeter astronomy professor Sasha Hinkley, who led the observing team.
webb It was launched in December 2021 and is the most powerful space telescope ever built. His images have excited in recent months, while orbiting the Sun 1.6 million kilometers from Earth.
It has telescopic accessories that block starlight, such as infrared gaze and coronagraphs, which allow it to take direct images of exoplanets.
“It was really impressive how well the coronagraphs from webb to suppress the light from the host star,” Hinkley said in a NASA statement on Thursday.
HIP 65426 b is between six and 12 times the mass of Jupiter, and is young at between 15 and 20 million years old, especially compared to Earth’s 4.5 billion years.
The telescope, which released its first images in July, has also revealed dazzling new details of the so-called ghost galaxy and the planet Jupiter.
Before, the space telescope Hubble had captured direct images of exoplanets, but with much less detail.
“I think the most exciting thing is that we’re just getting started,” said Aarynn Carter of the University of California. “We can even discover unknown planets,” she said.
The engineering project that includes the telescope james webb It cost an estimated $10 billion and is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. It is expected to work for approximately 20 years.
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