The Sun's gravity can be used like a lens to focus light allowing us to get a high quality image of an exoplanet. The best we've got are tiny fuzzy dots, and those are for gas giants larger than Jupiter. With this method, solar gravitational lensing, we could analyze the exoplanet's atmosphere for signs of life and habitability. Link to the paper “Diffraction of Electromagnetic Waves in the Gravitational Field of the Sun“ by Slava G. Turyshev, Viktor T. Toth:
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