"Starshade" technology that could help astronomers find and characterize rocky, Earthlike alien worlds was put to the test earlier this year in the Nevada desert.
A starshade, also dubbed an external occulter, is a precisely shaped screen that flies in far-away formation with a space telescope. The device blocks a star's light to create a high-contrast shadow, so that only light from an orbiting exoplanet enters the telescope for detailed study.
While a starshade to hunt alien planets has not been flown before, researchers studying the technique are drawing upon a track record of success in fielding large, deployable antennas in space. Some designs foresee a fully deployed starshade measuring some 110 feet (34 meters) in diameter, with a 65-foot (20 m) inner disk and 28 outstretched flowerlike petals, each over 22 feet (7 m) in length.
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http://www.space.com/27765-starshade-tech-alien-planet-search.html
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