In the last year planets have been imaged in nearby solar systems for the first time. We will discuss the observations leading up to the discovery of an exoplanet in Fomalhaut’s planetary system and contrast it with the other recent detections of exoplanets in the systems of HR 8799 and Beta Pictoris and place these in the context of other observations of exoplanets using alternate techniques. Finally, we will review prospects for exoplanet detection and the path to characterization of terrestrial planets.