James Webb Space Telescope wins 'race against time' to directly observe young exoplanet

A large orange and brown sphere shrouded in red smoke a blue rectangle containing white squares within which are blue circles.

The James Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged its lowest mass extrasolar planet outside the solar system yet. The planet is also the closest to its star to be directly observed by the $10 billion space telescope.

The imaging was a "race against time" with the extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," about to disappear behind the blinding light of its parent star, perhaps for as long as a decade.