SPACE.com -- New Technique Could Image Oceans on Faraway Planets: "A thin plastic 'starshade' shaped like a giant daisy flower could one day help astronomers observe faraway planets by blocking out unwanted light from their parent stars, a new study reports.

When telescopes point to a distant planet, the small amount of light reflected by the planet is overshadowed by the light from its parent star, making it especially difficult to be seen. For this reason, only two extrasolar planets have been seen directly, and there are no detailed images of any planet beyond our solar system."