WASHINGTON, September 2. /TASS/. The James Webb orbital telescope has taken its first-ever direct image of a planet outside the Solar system, NASA said in a statement on Thursday.
“For the first time, astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of a planet outside our solar system. The exoplanet is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable,” the statement said.
The exoplanet HIP 65426 b was discovered in 2017. It’s about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter, and is about 15 to 20 million years old. The image, according to NASA, could help to obtain more data about the exoplanet.
The James Webb space telescope – a joint project of NASA, the European and Canadian Space Agencies – was launched in December 2021. It’s designed to operate for 10 years.
