Direct Photography of Exoplanets Has Never Been Possible Up Until Now

NASA announced yesterday HIP 65426 b is the first exoplanet imaged directly by the new James Webb Space Telescope.

Webb's exoplanet photography feat was made possible by a coronagraph built into its various imaging instrument

which blocks out starlight and reveals anything orbiting the star.

The photos of HIP 65426 b that Webb took are not very good photograph

Being small, hazy, and taken with two distinct instrument

the multi-infrared instrument (MIRI) and the near-infrared camera

The achievement served as more of a hardware test than anything else.