In a groundbreaking first, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured its first direct image of a distant exoplanet unrecognized from past astronomical surveys.
The milestone achievement was made possible with help from a special coronagraph aboard Webb’s MIRI instrument that allows Webb to capture imagery under conditions that mimic those which occur naturally during an eclipse.
The discovery made in research lead by researcher Anne-Marie Lagrange with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Paris Observatory, in collaboration with Grenoble Alpes University.
Overcoming a Key Observational Challenge
Since its commissioning in 2022, Webb’s work with relation to exoplanets has primarily involved the characterization of those discovered using other observatories.
More broadly, spotting exoplanets using direct imaging has long been challenging due to their faintness and close proximity to bright parent stars, meaning that most discoveries have had to rely indirect methods that include transit photometry and radial velocity measurements.
While successful at detecting the presence of exoplanets, these methods are limited since they are unable to offer visual confirmation of these distant celestial objects.
To overcome this, the research team behind the discovery relied on a special coronagraph that allows Webb to mask starlight in ways similar to how the Moon shields Earth from Sunlight during an eclipse.
The result of this novel approach combined with Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity allowed NASA’s premiere space observatory to capture its first direct detection of a planet within the rocky debris disk surrounding a distant star.
Clues Hidden in Dusty Rings
By targeting young star systems in what astronomers call a “pole-on” orientation, where the view we have of these stellar bodies is as if we were looking directly down their rotational axis, astronomers were able to obtain a clear view of their surrounding debris disks.
These disks often contain warm, relatively young planets which are often best detected at mid-infrared wavelengths, which happens to be an ideal range for Webb’s infrared imaging suite. Two systems the astronomers observed possessed concentric ring structures, which included one known as TWA 7 that possesses three rings and a narrow central ring flanked by regions that are almost entirely empty.
In images Webb obtained of this area, astronomers detected a faint source residing within the narrow central ring, and after ruling out other explanations that included a more distant galaxy at some further distance in the background, it was ultimately concluded that the signal likely came from a previously undetected exoplanet which had remained hidden in TWA 7’s central ring.
Additional simulations helped confirm that the gravitational effects of this planet could account for the ring’s shape, as well as the empty regions around it, which perfectly aligned with JWST’s observations.
“Our observations reveal a strong candidate for a planet shaping the structure of the TWA 7 debris disc, and its position is exactly where we expected to find a planet of this mass,” LaGrange said in a statement published by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Introducing TWA 7 b
The newly revealed exoplanet, formally designated TWA 7 b, is estimated to be comparable in size to Saturn, and roughly ten times lighter than exoplanets previously observed in direct images.
The new discovery marks a significant advancement for exoplanet research, as it brings astronomers closer than ever to imaging planets that could bear qualities very similar to Earth; far more so than the gas giants which most past observations have revealed.
The research team behind the discovery of TWA 7 b hope that future observations by Webb could enable astronomers to capture images of planets that may be just one tenth the mass of gas giants like Jupiter.
The Path Forward in Exoplanet Research
Additionally, the team’s discovery showcases the importance of how future detections made by observatories on Earth and those parked in space may be able to reveal unprecedented insights into distant exoplanets with the aid of similar coronagraphs.
Right now, astronomers are already identifying some of the most potentially promising star systems in the known universe, which will become targets for future observations in the ongoing quest to find smaller, and potentially habitable, alien worlds.
“This observatory enables us to capture images of planets with masses similar to those in the solar system,” said Mathilde Malin of Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who was also one of the co-authors of a new study detailing the team’s findings published on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.
Malin added that the team’s achievment “represents an exciting step forward in our understanding of planetary systems, including our own.”
The findings were featured in a new study, “Evidence for a sub-Jovian planet in the young TWA 7 disk,” which appeared in the journal Nature on June 25, 2025.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.