James Webb Space Telescope Captures First Direct Image of Mysterious Alien Exoplanet Lurking in Dusty Debris Disk

Exoplanet TWA 7 b (Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, A.M. Lagrange, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)).

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.

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.

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.

In the image above, the disk surrounding the star TWA 7 is shown. The image was captured using the using ESO’s Very Large Telescope and its specialized SPHERE instrument, with imagery obtained using the JWST’s MIRI instrument overlayed. Note the presence of the empty area around TWA 7 B, visible in the R2 ring (CC #1) (Credit: JWST/ESO/Lagrange).

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).

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.

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.

When I saw the image it wasn't just a Bonnie Blue flag. I immediately wondered what galaxy might be involved/located in that 'hood, because as everyone already knows, Lone Starr had been left on the door-step of a mono-star-y in the 4D galaxy...

AI Overview

TWA 7b is an exoplanet located 111 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Antlia. It orbits a young red dwarf star called CE Antliae (also known as TWA 7). The planet was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope in the debris rings surrounding the star.

AI Overview

Antlia, also known as the Air Pump, is a faint constellation located in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is situated near the celestial south pole and is visible from southern latitudes. Antlia is bordered by the constellations Hydra, Pyxis, Vela, and Centaurus.

Finally I was getting somewhere, sort of:

Two star systems with known exoplanets, HD 93083 and WASP-66, lie within Antlia, as do NGC 2997, a spiral galaxy, and the Antlia Dwarf Galaxy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlia

James is an English form of Jacob, and what a tangled Webb he weave when he practice to believe (it's like something out of a fortune cookie):

Aunt Leah:

Then it dawned on me that from Joseph's perspective, Aunt Leah IS where the mystery of the Lone Starr is located,

Because in the soul count in Genesis 46, the sum is given as 70, but the names only add up to 69.

The anomaly tags to Aunt Leah, because the sum there is 33, but there are only 32 names.

Well, long story short is the midrash that Osnat (Joseph's wife) was actually the daughter of Dina by Shechem, and Jacob had hidden her in a bush to hide her from the wrath of Simeon and Levi (Osnat/sneh, a "bush").

And then she ended up in Egypt, adopted by Potiphar and his wife. Then as Divine Providence had its ultimate say, all the girls in town followed Joseph around wanting to be close to him ("Why DO stars fall down from the sky Every time you walk by?"), tossing their jewelry at him.

As the story continues, it was Osnat's jewelry piece that attracted Joseph's attention-to-detail gene, because of the mysterious writing inscribed [by Jacob] for this future ID occasion. No one in Egypt but Joseph could read the writing,

which informed him that this pretty girl was not like the others -- she was actually a daughter of Jacob

-- truly a royal princess, ergo one of the tribe.

He "orbits a young red dwarf star called See Aunt Leah.."

Here was a match made in the heavens that looked like complete gibberish to the Egyptians, but Joseph knew because his literacy skills were not of this world.

Aunt Leah's Dwarf explains it all right here in the hysterical documents:

1:08
your fortune cookie so here's your
1:10
fortune Lon star you know that Medallion
1:14
that you wear around your neck but you
1:16
don't know what it means well here's
1:18
what it means it's a royal birth
1:20
certificate yes your father was a king
1:24
your mother was a queen which makes you
1:27
a cified prince hey

Spaceballs (1987) Magic Time/Lonestar Becomes A Prince Scene

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