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In June 2025, the James Webb Space Telescope achieved a first: rather than detecting a planet through its effect on starlight, it captured a direct image of a faint, Saturn-mass world near a young star 111 light-years away.

What is this newly imaged exoplanet called?

Q: What is this newly imaged exoplanet called?

TWA 7 b. Using a coronagraph on its Mid-Infrared Instrument to block the glare of the host star TWA 7, Webb directly photographed TWA 7 b, roughly ten times lighter than any exoplanet previously imaged this way, and the discovery, published in Nature, is seen as a major step toward eventually directly imaging smaller, more Earth-like planets.

TWA 7 b ✓
Proxima b
Kepler-22b

TWA 7 b
Using a coronagraph on its Mid-Infrared Instrument to block the glare of the host star TWA 7, Webb directly photographed TWA 7 b, roughly ten times lighter than any exoplanet previously imaged this way, and the discovery, published in Nature, is seen as a major step toward eventually directly imaging smaller, more Earth-like planets.

TWA 7 b was captured by direct imaging, meaning astronomers photographed its actual light rather than inferring it indirectly. Webb used a coronagraph on its Mid-Infrared Instrument to block the glare of host star TWA 7, letting the planet's much fainter light through.

Proxima b, the nearest star's planet, was found by the radial-velocity method, not imaging. Kepler-22b was found by the transit method, watching starlight dim as it passed — both different techniques.

TWA 7 b is roughly ten times lighter than any exoplanet previously directly imaged, a step toward eventually photographing smaller, Earth-like worlds.

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