Astronomers have announced that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has successfully captured its first direct images of carbon dioxide gas on a planet beyond the solar system, the findings are both a testament to the telescope’s power in direct imaging and provide valuable insights into how planets form, both within our solar system and across the universe.

The latest JWST observations focused on the HR 8799 system, which consists of four planets orbiting their host star about 130 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Previous observations have shown four of them are more massive than Jupiter, and are in orbits with periods that range from decades to centuries. This system has long intrigued astronomers studying planet formation, largely because of its youth — at just 30 million years old, these planets still radiate leftover heat from their births, which JWST was able to observe in wavelengths that tease out the specific gases and other atmospheric details.

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James Webb Space Telescope sees four giant alien planets circling nearby star