Webb Telescope spots its first alien planet: 'TWA 7b'

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered its first exoplanet, astronomers said on Wednesday, capturing rare direct images of the relatively small world in the Earth's galactic backyard.

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The telescope, which can see farther into the universe than anything before it, has turbo-charged the search for planets beyond the Solar System since coming online in 2022.

Until now, however, its deep gaze has mostly been used to probe already known exoplanets — to find out key information such as the atmospheric composition — rather than tracking down new worlds.

The discovery of exoplanet TWA 7b, revealed in a study in the journal Nature, "represents a first for the telescope", France's CNRS research centre said in a statement.