Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA's Webb

June 10, 2025 2:15PM (EDT)Release ID: 2025-125
This image shows the exoplanet 14 Herculis c. The view is mostly black, with very faint red splotches in the central region of the image. At the center of the image, there is a black circle, and in the center of that, there is a star symbol representing a real star. This black circle blocks the light from the host star. To the lower right of the circle is a fuzzy bright orange circle, which is the exoplanet.

Summary

First image ever taken of exoplanet in extremely mis-aligned system

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.

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Visit NASA Science to view the full news release including article text and associated Webb imagery, graphics, scientific visualizations, videos, captions, text descriptions, and other information.

News releases highlighting the discoveries of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are produced for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, under NASA Contract NAS5-03127. News release content is developed by the News Team in STScI’s Office of Public Outreach.

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