Proof James Webb is capable of capturing alien 'houses'

The James Webb super telescope, which astronomers hope will be able to shine a light directly on habitable worlds, has just proven it won't disappoint: Bringing back the first direct image of an extrasolar planet God.

The images of exoplanets - or extrasolar planets - we've seen before are all re-graphics, based on rare spectral data that telescopes have gathered from the "line" light curve" of the parent star, when the planet accidentally flew across the space between the parent star and Earth. Because they are all too far away.

But in research just published online on aXirv on September 2, a team of scientists has identified in the database that the James Webb super telescope sent back to Earth the first direct image of a planet. outside the Solar System.

The first exoplanet portrait directly photographed by humanity through 4 different filters

James Webb is a $9 billion super telescope operated by NASA, in collaboration with ESA and CSA (the European and Canadian space agency), and has been operating for a few months now.

Before that, in addition to the main task of observing deep space regions to identify interesting objects in the universe, it is expected to use its "celestial eye" to look into worlds where data is not available. stubs previously suspected that there was life.

The changing image of astronomical history, analyzed by a team of scientists led by astrophysicist Sahaa Hinkley from the University of Exeter in the UK and astronomer Aarynn Carter of the University of California at Santa Cruz has just demonstrated if there's an alien "home" there, which James Webb will capture.

Through four different filters, the planet HIP 65426b, 350 light-years away, appears quite faint, but for scientists, that is enough to bring a lot of data.

This remarkable observation once again confirms the ability to capture the chemical signatures of compounds related to life that may exist in the atmosphere of exoplanets. That's what astrophysicists are looking for, not a literal portrait of aliens.

HIP 65426b was first discovered in 2017 with an instrument called SPHERE aboard the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope, which has a mass 7.1 times that of Jupiter.

"Having this image is like we're digging for treasure in space. I think the most exciting thing is that we're just getting started. There's a lot of images of exoplanets waiting to be discovered, helping us out. overall understanding of physics, chemistry and their formation," said Dr. Carter.