We live in an era where worlds like Tatooine — the iconic twin-sun planet from Star Wars — have leapt from science fiction into the realm of modern astrophysics. These distant worlds, orbiting stars beyond our Sun, are known as exoplanets.

At the Subaru Telescope, a powerful instrument called the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) makes it possible to directly image these alien worlds. By combining cutting-edge adaptive optics with coronagraphy, SCExAO suppresses starlight and reveals the faint glow of orbiting exoplanets.

This Shadow the Scientists session will offer a sneak peek into SCExAO observations of one such extrasolar world captured by the Subaru Telescope. While an exoplanet may not be visible in the raw images during this observation, the session will explain the methods behind these observations, which are similar to those used by the James Webb Space Telescope in space.