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This isn't a real image of an exoplanet right? The one in the background. Nowhere does it say that, which I think is beyond the ability of even JWST, to resolve an exoplanet at 50 light years?

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-...

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The image in the background is an artist's rendition. The graph is the real image.

Exoplanets are too far away and too small to image directly.

I do hope they can train the JWST at a close-by star and at least see a dot that represents an exoplanet.

> Exoplanets are too far away and too small to image directly.

If you mean resolving details of the exoplanet, then yes that is currently true. But we have imaged exoplanets directly, meaning taken an image of a star where one can also see the planet directly in the image. [0] has a list of directly imaged exoplanets.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_directly_imaged_exopla...

Woah didn't know about that. The gif on that page is incredible!

It's an impressive technique. Direct imaging finds planets that would be unlikely to be identified via other detection techniques (such as measuring the wobble in the parent star's radial velocity or measuring photometric eclipses as the planet passes between us and the parent star).

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