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Ever since the ‘James Webb Space Telescope’, the largest telescope deployed in space, has started its work, it is surprising the whole world with unseen pictures of space. This time the telescope has been successful in capturing the first image of a planet outside the solar system. Telescope has captured a picture of an exoplanet. Significantly, planets that revolve around stars other than the Sun are called exoplanets. According to the Space Research Center, this photo is not the first direct image of an exoplanet taken from space, but it shows the capabilities of the Webb telescope. The pictures have been shared by NASA on its social media platforms. The image shows exoplanets in different bands of infrared light.

NASA has also told why every photo looks different. This is because of the instruments that were used to capture the light. NASA has told that inside each instrument a set of masks called coronagraph was installed. This blocks the light of the exoplanet’s star, which makes it possible to see the exoplanet. The small star that has been made in each image is the real star of the exoplanet at that place, whose brightness has been reduced through technology.

NASA has told that the first image has a view of the NIRCam of the Webb telescope. It shows a purple dot with a purple bar. These points or dots have been prepared by the Webb telescope. The second picture also has the view of NIRCam. This time it is in blue colour. The third image is the MIRI view, which is orange in color and does not have any bars. The MIRI view is shown in red in the fourth picture. The fifth image shows that this exoplanet is ‘HIP 65426 b’.

According to NASA, this exoplanet is a giant gas planet, which means it does not have a rocky surface and may not be habitable. It is about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter and about 15 to 20 million years old. In comparison, our Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Taking direct images of exoplanets is challenging because their stars are much brighter than planets. The planet HIP 65426 b is also 10,000 times dimmer than its star.