Planets photographed directly
98 of the confirmed exoplanets in this catalog, 1.5% of the total, were found by direct imaging: blocking out the star and photographing the planet beside it, the first of them in 2004.
Yes, for a handful. The problem is contrast: a star outshines its planet by a factor of a billion or more, so the planet is lost in glare the way a firefly beside a searchlight is. A coronagraph blocks the starlight, adaptive optics cancel the atmosphere's blurring, and what is left, in the best cases, is a faint point of light that moves with the star from year to year.
The planets this works for are the young, hot, massive ones on wide orbits, still glowing from the heat of their own formation, which is why the directly imaged catalog looks nothing like the transiting one. It is the only method that gives you the light of the planet itself, which means a spectrum, which means the beginnings of chemistry.
Everything close in, and everything small and cold. A planet on an Earth-like orbit is buried in its star's glare at any distance we could resolve, and an old planet has cooled until it shines only in reflected light. What is left is a biased sample of young giants far from their stars, and their masses are model fits rather than measurements.
| # | World | Distance | Discovered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WISEP J121756.91+162640.2 A b | 32.9 ly | 2012 |
| 2 | COCONUTS-2 b | 35.5 ly | 2021 |
| 3 | Ross 458 c | 37.5 ly | 2010 |
| 4 | VHS J125601.92-125723.9 b | 41.4 ly | 2015 |
| 5 | CWISEP J193518.59-154620.3 b | 47.1 ly | 2025 |
| 6 | GJ 504 b | 57.2 ly | 2013 |
| 7 | HN Peg b | 59.1 ly | 2006 |
| 8 | WD 0806-661 b | 62.8 ly | 2011 |
| 9 | bet Pic b | 64.4 ly | 2008 |
| 10 | bet Pic d | 64.4 ly | 2026 |
| 11 | GJ 900 b | 67.9 ly | 2024 |
| 12 | G 196-3 b | 71.1 ly | 2024 |
| 13 | CD-35 2722 b | 73.0 ly | 2011 |
| 14 | CFBDSIR J145829+101343 b | 75.3 ly | 2011 |
| 15 | AF Lep b | 87.6 ly | 2023 |
| 16 | 51 Eri b | 97.1 ly | 2015 |
| 17 | 2MASS J01225093-2439505 b | 110 ly | 2013 |
| 18 | LP 261-75 b | 111 ly | 2006 |
| 19 | TWA 7 b | 111 ly | 2025 |
| 20 | HR 2562 b | 111 ly | 2016 |
| 21 | 2MASS J21252752-8138278 b | 111 ly | 2024 |
| 22 | HD 203030 b | 128 ly | 2006 |
| 23 | UCAC4 328-061594 b | 130 ly | 2024 |
| 24 | HIP 99770 b | 131 ly | 2023 |
| 25 | 2MASS J02192210-3925225 b | 131 ly | 2015 |
Showing the 25 nearest of 92 with a measured distance.
Can you take a picture of an exoplanet?
98 of the confirmed exoplanets in this catalog, 1.5% of the total, were found by direct imaging: blocking out the star and photographing the planet beside it, the first of them in 2004.
What was the first planet found by direct imaging?
2MASS J12073346-3932539 b, confirmed in 2004. The method has found 98 confirmed worlds since, the most recent of them in 2026.
What can this method not see?
Everything close in, and everything small and cold. A planet on an Earth-like orbit is buried in its star's glare at any distance we could resolve, and an old planet has cooled until it shines only in reflected light. What is left is a biased sample of young giants far from their stars, and their masses are model fits rather than measurements.
What do direct images of exoplanets actually look like?
A dot. A few pixels of light beside a masked-out star, sometimes with a disc of dust visible around it. The value is not the picture but the spectrum: light straight from the planet, carrying the fingerprints of what its atmosphere is made of.
Why are imaged planets so young?
Because a young planet is still hot from the energy of its own formation and glows in the infrared on its own. Give it a few hundred million years and it cools and fades, leaving only reflected starlight, which is far fainter still.
Keep exploring: every detection method · discoveries by year