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NASA's Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

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July 15, 2026 8:00AM (EDT)Release ID: 2026-126
Artist's concept of the Beta Pictoris planetary system. One edge of a smooth, dusty disk that looks like cloud wisps extends across the upper third of the image at an angle from 9 o’clock to 2 o’clock. Just below that, in the left third of the image, the star glows white and is small. Just to the left of the star there is a tiny white dot, planet Beta Pictoris c. To the right of the star, about twice the distance between Beta Pictoris c and the star is another bright dot, representing planet Beta Pictoris b. A third planet, Beta Pictoris d is larger than the other two, and appears in the right third of the illustration. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands, and the side facing the star is illuminated. Below this planet, the other wispy edge of the dusty disk that circles the star crosses the bottom right corner of the illustration below Beta Pictoris d from 4 o’clock to 7 o’clock. The black background of space is speckled with distant stars. The words "Artist's Concept" appears at the lower left corner.

Summary

Planet found through its atmospheric fingerprint opens new way to uncover worlds hidden in starlight

Few planetary systems have shaped astronomers’ understanding of planet formation as profoundly as Beta Pictoris. Since the discovery of its famous debris disk in 1983, observations with ground- and space-based telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, have revealed exocomets, intricate dust structure, giant exoplanets, and evidence of a planetary system still under construction. Now, Webb has uncovered a third giant planet using an entirely new approach: identifying it through the chemical fingerprint of its atmosphere.

Full Article

Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems in our Milky Way galaxy. The young, nearby star Beta Pictoris was already known to host two giant planets: Beta Pictoris b, one of the first exoplanets ever directly imaged, and Beta Pictoris c. The newly identified Beta Pictoris d makes it only the second planetary system known to contain at least three imaged planets. Unlike Beta Pictoris b and c, however, Beta Pictoris d was discovered not by identifying ...

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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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