NASA’s JWST Takes Its First-Ever Direct Image of Distant World

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Image of Exoplanet HIP 65426b in Near and Mid Infrared

This image shows the exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the James Webb Space Telescope: purple shows the NIRCam instrument’s view at 3.00 micrometers, blue shows the NIRCam instrument’s view at 4.44 micrometers, yellow shows the MIRI instrument’s view at 11.4 micrometers, and red shows the MIRI instrument’s view at 15.5 micrometers. These images look different because of the ways that the different Webb instruments capture light. A set of masks within each instrument, called a coronagraph, blocks out the host star’s light so that the planet can be seen. The small white star in each image marks the location of the host star HIP 65426, which has been subtracted using the coronagraphs and image processing. The bar shapes in the NIRCam images are artifacts of the telescope’s optics, not objects in the scene. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI).

WASHINGTON – An astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is part of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Early Release Science Team for Direct Observations of Exoplanets that released the observations of a super-Jupiter exoplanet, HIP 65426 b, using JWST Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Sept. 1.

Jordan Stone, Ph.D., an astrophysicist in NRL’s Remote Sensing Division said this early release of the exoplanet imagery was detected using seven of JWST’s observational filters, representing the first images of an exoplanet to be obtained by JWST, and the first ever direct detection of an exoplanet at wavelengths beyond 5 microns.

“One of the things we're most excited about is that we now have the ability to measure the brightness of planets at wavelengths longer than 5 microns,” Jordan Stone, Ph.D., an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. said. “So we now have this, highly precise, machine that's giving us the ability to, to measure light from planet surfaces across a really broad wavelength range. And so this is really going to transform our understanding of giant planets.”

An exoplanet is any planet beyond our solar system. HIP 65426 b, is a relatively young exoplanet, about 14 million years old, and is located in the constellation Centaurus, about 349 light years from Earth.

The JWST NIRCam observes from 0.6 to 5 microns and offers imaging, coronagraphy, and grism slitless spectroscopy; MIRI is a camera and a spectrograph that observes mid to long infrared radiation from 5 microns to 28 microns. It also has coronagraphs, especially for observing exoplanets.

HIP 65426 b circles an A type star, which is about twice the size of the sun. The planet orbits its star at about 60 – 100 AU (7.4 – 9.3 billion miles) distance. That is roughly the double the distance Pluto is from the sun. The exoplanet is seven times the mass and about one and a half times the size of Jupiter.

JWST, launched on Christmas Day 2021, is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, and the first large strategic mission of the NASA Astrophysics Division to launch since the 1990’s. The infrared observatory is orbiting the Sun about 1 million miles from Earth. Since coming on line, it has produced stunning images and a series of preliminary discoveries.

About the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. NRL is located in Washington, D.C. with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi; Key West, Florida; Monterey, California, and employs approximately 3,000 civilian scientists, engineers and support personnel.

For more information, contact NRL Corporate Communications at (202) 480-3746 or nrlpao@nrl.navy.mil.