This image reveals for the first time the young planet TWA 7b, with a mass comparable to Saturn and ten times less massive than previously imaged exoplanets. This feat was made possible by the 4QPM coronagraph on the James Webb Space Telescope. Orbiting 50 times the distance between Earth and the Sun around its star, TWA 7 (only 6 million years old), this planet evolves in a dust disc where it has carved out a groove that can be observed with the SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile. This is a world first : never before has such a light planet still in formation been directly imaged, offering unprecedented insight into the birth of planetary systems.
Credits : Image MIRI : ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA ; Image SPHERE : ESO/VLT ; Graphisme : T. Carpentier
