Telescopic sun of sorts...

When I heard about a year ago that scientist discovered a new planet, it wasn't what they discovered that interested me, but the means used to find this planet. Astronomers simply used the gravitational force of a distant star and found a 'wobble' orbiting somewhere around it which later turned out through further research to be a planet of a far distant solar system. I thought "Wow! They simply used the star to find the planet without looking?" Almost like the equivelent of Colombus being blind.

So I was thinking: Does NASA or any observatory here in the US (or world) use our sun to find other planetary bodies close by such as comets, asteroids, or even say Planet X? Can there also be a way to use the sun as some sort of supercomputer/satellite to help with ground based communications? For insatnce, you can shoot information into the sun and later retrieve the information through its natural fusion process, maybe? I did a google search and came up empty.

Thanks for any replies.

Originally posted by FrostySo I was thinking: Does NASA or any observatory here in the US (or world) use our sun to find other planetary bodies close by such as comets, asteroids, or even say Planet X?

Planets, yes (that's how Sedna was found), comets, no.. they're too tiny. Ditto asteroids. Not enough mass.

Planet X ("Nibiru") doesn't exist, and the motions of the planetary orbits show this clearly. Ditto the mythical "planet parked in orbit around the sun that's opposite Earth"... planetary and comet and meteor paths show that no such planet exists.

Can there also be a way to use the sun as some sort of supercomputer/satellite to help with ground based communications? For insatnce, you can shoot information into the sun and later retrieve the information through its natural fusion process, maybe? I did a google search and came up empty.

No... at this point you can't store information in a chaotic system.

The Sun is a chaotic pattern system.