Direct Imaging of Extrasolar Planets From Galileo to HWO

[Presented at HWO25 "Towards the Habitable Worlds Observatory: Visionary Science and Transformational Technology"]

Directly imaging an extrasolar planet - resolving its light from its parent star - is potential one of the most powerful ways to study planets and their atmospheres, and the only technique that can plausibly allow us to study the atmosphere of an Earthlike planet orbiting a Sunlike star. Decades of progress in this field have allowed us to image giant planets but it is still extremely challenging, since stars are ten billion times brighter than their Earthlike planets. I will review the progress in this field, both on the ground and in space, and the discoveries this has enabled. The culmination of this road will be the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the first space telescope designed especially for this purpose; I will summarize the road to HWO and the next steps.