New Method Sharpens View of Faint Exoplanets

The FLIP framework removes starlight from telescope images and is research-stage, with broader Earth-like planet imaging still a goal.

Updated on Nov. 4, 2026 in Space

Bold flat-color editorial illustration of a polished telescope mirror catching a starburst of glare beside a faint cyan point of light, separated by a dark stripe. — Northwestern University researchers unveiled a research-stage method that removes starlight from Webb telescope images, improving faint exoplanet sensitivity two to 15 times over conventional techniques. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

Northwestern University researchers have developed a method to remove starlight from telescope images so that faint exoplanets become easier to see. In tests on James Webb Space Telescope data, the method improved sensitivity to faint exoplanets by two to 15 times over conventional techniques. The work is research-stage, described in the study rather than shipped as a commercial product.

Why it matters

Host stars' glare can overwhelm the faint light of planets orbiting them, and existing techniques leave residual glare when tiny changes in telescope optics occur. A method that models those optical imperfections directly addresses a limit that has constrained direct imaging of planets.

Tests on Webb's NIRCam observations showed sensitivity improvements of two to 15 times over conventional techniques. The method produced the first image of the known giant planet 51 Eridani b at 4.3 micrometers, a wavelength where conventional processing had failed.

The players

Northwestern University

A private research university whose team developed the FLIP starlight-removal method for telescope imaging.

Rodrigo Ferrer-Chavez

Northwestern researcher who led the team that developed the FLIP method.

The details

The framework, named Physics-based Learning for Imaging Planets (FLIP), combines a physics-based model of the telescope with optimization techniques drawn from machine learning. FLIP models how light passes through the telescope, adjusts for optical imperfections, and simulates the starlight glare that needs to be subtracted from the image. The approach was applied to observations from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), and the researchers say it can be extended to other current and future ground-based and space-based observatories.

The Tech Race

The method builds on the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam observations, where conventional processing had failed to image 51 Eridani b at 4.3 micrometers. The researchers position FLIP as extensible to other ground-based and space-based observatories, with further work aimed at reducing computational demands.

The method is research-stage and not yet available to observers outside the study team. Its extension to other observatories and any timeline for broader use were not announced.

The takeaway

The framework's stated next steps are reducing computational demands and handling larger data volumes from ground-based observations. Watch for follow-up testing that reports whether direct images of Earth-like planets become feasible.