NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has not only become known for groundbreaking science discoveries across all fields of astrophysics, but also for its gorgeous, intricate images of celestial objects like star-forming regions and solar system planets. Webb's images of exoplanets look noticeably different than those sweeping landscapes, though. This is because it is extremely difficult to image planets orbiting stars other than our own Sun. Oftentimes the host stars are thousands of times brighter than the planets that orbit them, and the planets are relatively close to their stars on the sky. However, researchers can obtain an abundance of information from what appears as just a distant dot in an image. Webb's new image of 14 Herculis c, a cold exoplanet orbiting a star 60 light-years away from Earth, has given researchers insight into the planet's temperature, strange orbit, and atmospheric dynamics.Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA's Webb
June 13, 2025
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has not only become known for groundbreaking science discoveries across all fields of astrophysics, but also for its gorgeous, intricate images of celestial objects like star-forming regions and solar system planets. Webb's images of exoplanets look noticeably different than those sweeping landscapes, though. This is because it is extremely difficult to image planets orbiting stars other than our own Sun. Oftentimes the host stars are thousands of times brighter than the planets that orbit them, and the planets are relatively close to their stars on the sky. However, researchers can obtain an abundance of information from what appears as just a distant dot in an image. Webb's new image of 14 Herculis c, a cold exoplanet orbiting a star 60 light-years away from Earth, has given researchers insight into the planet's temperature, strange orbit, and atmospheric dynamics.
