(Fox News) – NASA on Thursday shared an image taken by the
James Webb Telescope showing the first-ever direct image of
a planet outside our solar system. 

NASA says the exoplanet, HIP 65426 b, is a gas giant, meaning
it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable. The image
can be seen through different bands of infrared light.

Sasha Hinkley, associate professor of physics and astronomy
at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, who led the observations, called the images a "transformative moment, not
only for Webb but also for astronomy generally." 

The James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December
2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, and
arrived at the Sun–Earth L₂ Lagrange point in January 2022.

The telescope is the successor of the Hubble as NASA’s flagship
mission in astrophysics.

From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida,
the U.S. unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 was launched into
an orbit around the earth. The spacecraft, commonly known
as the “Paddlewheel” satellite, featured a photocell scanner
that transmitted a crude picture of the earth’s surface and
cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles. The photo,
received in Hawaii, took nearly 40 minutes to transmit.

Released by NASA in September, the first photograph ever
taken of the earth by a U.S. satellite (below) depicted a
crescent shape of part of the planet in sunlight. It was
Mexico, captured by Explorer 6 as it raced westward over
the earth at speeds in excess of 20,000 miles an hour. 

First satellite image of the Earth from space, taken by
Explorer 6 in 1959.

Explorer 6 Satellite (Reconstructed Replica) at the National Space Museum.

Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up
images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the
lunar surface northwest of the Sea of Clouds. The images were
1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year—Ranger 6—but
the probe’s cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar
surface. Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact
and began beaming the images back to NASA’s receiving station
in California.

An artist’s concept of NASA’s Ranger 7 approaching the
Moon.

Communications satellite Telstar 1 was launched atop a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the
first television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images,
and provided the first live transatlantic television feed. Telstar 2
launched May 7, 1963. Telstar 1 and 2, though no longer
functional ,still orbit the Earth today.

On June 3, 1965, Ed White became the first American to walk in
space when he ventured outside the Gemini capsule into the
vacuum of the cosmos. He was among NASA’s Astronaut Group
2, an elite group of nine astronauts selected for the Gemini
program.  (Space)

Edward Higgins White II
(November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967)