HIP 65426 b was the first exoplanet imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope.
JWST observed the young gas giant in 2022, producing its first direct image of an exoplanet. The planet had already been discovered in 2017 by the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, so JWST’s achievement was imaging an already known world rather than discovering it.
HIP 65426 b is a super-Jupiter orbiting the young A-type star HIP 65426. It is approximately 385 light-years away and sits about 92 astronomical units from its host star, farther out than Neptune’s average distance from the Sun. Its youth—around 14 million years—means it remains hot and bright in infrared light.
The planet is sometimes confused with early JWST atmospheric targets such as WASP-39b or VHS 1256 b. Those worlds were studied mainly through transit or spectral observations. HIP 65426 b is the milestone associated specifically with JWST direct imaging.