ScienceDaily
Direct imaging
Actually photographing a planet, by blocking out the star that drowns it.
A star outshines its planets by a factor of a billion at visible wavelengths, so the technique is entirely about suppressing starlight: a coronagraph inside the instrument, or a starshade flown separately, plus adaptive optics to keep the star's light from smearing over the planet. It only works at present for young, hot, massive planets far from their stars — the ones still glowing from their own formation. It is the only method that produces a spectrum of the planet itself rather than of starlight filtered through it.
Where it has come up lately
NASA Science
NASASpaceflight
NASA Science
Phys.org
Universe Today
Related terms
Transit method
Finding planets by watching a star dim slightly as one passes in front.
Radial velocity
Finding planets by the wobble they induce in their star's motion.
Habitable zone
The orbital band where a planet could hold liquid water — no more than that.
Sub-Neptune
The most common kind of planet in the galaxy, and there is not one in our solar system.
Questions
What is Direct imaging?
Actually photographing a planet, by blocking out the star that drowns it.
Why does it matter?
It only works at present for young, hot, massive planets far from their stars — the ones still glowing from their own formation. It is the only method that produces a spectrum of the planet itself rather than of starlight filtered through it.