But the Webb telescope is far more sensitive than any infrared observatory we've ever built, and it has managed to image a relatively nearby exoplanet that's roughly as old as the ones in our Solar System.
What do you need to directly image a planet that's orbiting a star light-years away? The first thing is a bit of hardware called a coronagraph attached to your telescope. This is responsible for blocking the light from the star the planet is orbiting; without it, that light will swamp any other sources in the exosolar system.
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