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Astronomers use several techniques to find exoplanets, including the so-called "gravitational microlensing" method. The light from a faraway star and its exoplanet is bent around another star located midway between Earth and the distant star/exoplanet, which magnifies its image like a telescope lens. Now researchers have picked up an earlier suggestion from Italian physicist Claudio Maccone to use our Sun, rather than a distant star, to create what might be the ultimate telescope based on the microlensing principle. [Source: Air & Space Magazine (Smithsonian)]
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