---
title: "James Webb Discovers First-Ever Exoplanet by Taking a Picture of It"
description: "Scientists using the James Webb took its first ever direct picture of an exoplanet that resulted in its discovery."
date: "2025-06-28"
modified: "2025-06-28"
authors:
  - name: "Sharon Adarlo"
    job_title: "Correspondent"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/sadarlo"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/james-webb-exoplanet-discovery-direct-image"
categories:
  - "Astronomy"
  - "Exoplanets"
  - "James Webb Space Telescope"
  - "NASA"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "exoplanet"
  - "james webb space telescope"
  - "NASA"
  - "the digest"
---

# James Webb Discovers First-Ever Exoplanet by Taking a Picture of It

![Scientists using the James Webb took its first ever direct picture of an exoplanet that resulted in its discovery.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/james-webb-exoplanet-discovery-direct-image.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Anne-Marie Lagrange (CNRS, UGA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)\</em\>*

## World's First

Scientists harnessing NASA's James Webb Space Telescope took what appears to be the first-ever direct picture of an exoplanet resulting in its discovery, in yet another accomplishment for the mighty space observatory.

An international team of astronomers published a [paper on the historic finding](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09150-4>) in the prestigious journal *Nature.*

"If confirmed, this would represent Webb’s first direct image discovery of a planet," they [wrote](<https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-126.html>) of the finding, "and the lightest planet ever seen with this technique outside the solar system."

The planet, dubbed TWA 7 b, orbits a young star and appears to be about the size of Neptune. Though the James Webb has [directly imaged other exoplanets](<https://futurism.com/james-webb-planets-star-system>) previously, they were previously known to exist; in this case, in an apparent first-ever accomplishment, the act of capturing the picture also established the existence of the distant world.

## Fantastic Planets

Since [its launch in 2021](<https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/>), the James Webb has been at the forefront of many exciting space discoveries, from [plumbing the depths of the early universe ](<https://webbtelescope.org/contents/articles/how-can-webb-study-the-early-universe>)to [investigating how our solar system was formed](<https://webbtelescope.org/contents/articles/exploring-our-solar-system-with-webb>). It's able to do all this because it's the largest space telescope ever built, even bigger than [Hubble Space Telescope](<https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/>), with a primary mirror measuring over 21 feet in diameter.

TWA 7 b was difficult to detect due to the glare of the orbiting star, so the team developed a clever mechanism that mimics an eclipse in order to pick out any bodies that are lurking in the blinding light.

The exoplanet orbits the star TWA 7, a relatively young red dwarf at 6.4 million years of age that sports a sizable debris field.

"Here we’re looking at a system that is about 6 \[million\] years old, so we are really witnessing the youth of the planetary system," Anne-Marie Lagrange, astrophysicist and first author of the paper, [told *The Guardian*](<https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/25/james-webb-space-telescope-first-direct-images-exoplanet>).

**More on exoplanets:** [An AI Identifies Where All Those Planets That Could Host Life Are Hiding](<https://futurism.com/ai-finds-planets-potential-life>)