Astronomers detected the new planet as it crossed the face of the distant "sun", dimming the star's light as it passed in front.

BBC: Telescope sees smallest exoplanet

Together, these early telescopes found neutrinos from the sun, and from distant supernovae.

ECONOMIST: This year, the Nobel authorities have shown a deft touch

This eponymous theory is that large masses (such as the moon) partially block the gravitational force from more distant objects (such as the sun).

ECONOMIST: Gravitational anomalies

On November 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant man-made object from the Sun when it reached a point further away than NASA probe Pioneer 10, which launched in 1972.

FORBES: Voyager 1 Flies Through 'Magnetic Highway' On Its Way Out Of The Solar System

This would make sense if short-period comets started off in the Kuiper belt and were nudged into closer orbits around the sun by the gravity of the most distant of the giant planets, Neptune.

ECONOMIST: Unbuckling the Kuiper belt

They have used similar observations of more distant stars to find "exoplanets" (planets orbiting stars other than the sun) and in a few rare cases, to measure characteristics of the exoplanet atmospheres.

CNN: A transit of Venus, an age of wondrous science

But the reason that they come near the sun at all is because their original orbits, which kept them in the distant realm of the Oort cloud, had been somehow disturbed.

ECONOMIST: X marks the spot

On the distant Kemah bridge, where the lake merged into Galveston Bay, a procession of cars glinted in the sun, and a smallish flock of pink spoonbills meandered in from the opposite shore, heading past the Hilton toward the marshy channels and bayous beyond Bay Area Boulevard.

NPR: In 'Challenger Park,' Mom Is an Astronaut

This is easily enough to detect Jupiter-like planets around distant stars, and it should also be enough to detect smaller, Uranus-like planets around stars within the sun's stellar neighbourhood.

ECONOMIST: A roadmap for planet-hunting