James Webb Telescope reveals hidden exoplanet 51 Eridani b

Astronomers used a new technique called FLIP to remove starlight from James Webb Space Telescope observations, revealing the giant exoplanet 51 Eridani b, which had been hidden in data collected two years ago. The gas giant, about 11 times Jupiter's mass and orbiting a star 97 light-years away, was obscured by glare from its host star. The new method creates a digital twin of the telescope to simulate and subtract starlight, outperforming conventional processing by two to 15 times. The team tested FLIP on three star systems and successfully recovered the previously unseen planet. Researchers hope the technique will help discover more exoplanets, potentially aiding NASA's future Habitable Worlds Observatory in directly imaging Earth-like worlds.