JWST reveals its first direct image discovery of an exoplanet

This is super exciting. It seems possible to one day receive higher resolution images of this type of find. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with this subject can opine.

The moment we have our first, direct-observation photo of an earth-like exoplanet will be a defining point in our history.

That will be done with a solar gravitational lens - there's a recent-ish NASA paper about it. Basically you send your probe to > 550 AU in the opposite direction of your target exoplanet, point it at the Sun and you will get a warped high-res photo of the planet around the Sun. You can then algorithmically decode it into a regular photo.

I think the transit time is likely decades and the build time is also a long time as well. But in maybe 40-100 years we could have plentiful HD images of 'nearby' exoplanets. If I'm still around when it happens I will be beyond hyped.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is supposed to have even better coronagraph as a technology demonstrator. They keep finding ways to improve on the technology.

this is one of those where a missed alignment is going to be a huge bummer. 550AU * arcseconds is a long way off looking not at what you wanted. you wouldn't know until you were at minimum distance which is going to take generations to achieve. voyager 1 is only ~166AU and that was >40 years. so if you try to nudge your coarse, how many more generations would it be before it was aligned correctly?

FYI: Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravity Lens Mission. https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11871

an arcsecond at 550AU is "only" 400,125 km. So, in theory, it's correctable in days.

If it's allowed to continue, which seems very shakey at the moment. NASA's would from DOGE will result in projects - even mostly completed one - being trashed.

I’m not sure why this is downvoted. It’s entirely accurate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telesc...

> In April 2025, the second Trump administration proposed to cut funding for Roman again as part of its FY2026 budget draft. This was part of wider proposed cuts to NASA's science budget, down to US$3.9 billion from its FY2025 budget of US$7.5 billion. On April 25, 2025, the White House Office of Management and Budget announced a plan to cancel dozens of space missions, including the Roman Space Telescope, as part of the cuts.

China is catching up on optics and launch. The torch of civilisation seems unlikely to be lost if we fuck it up that badly.