[rjsimmon]

We have calculated that a modest telescope located approximately 50 billion miles from the Sun

Since the Earth is 1 AU (93 million miles) from the Sun, how they gonna get a telescope out that far? And how they gonna get data from it?

[ml/nj]

"astronomers may at last find a planet that shows signs of life as we know it, in the form of atmospheric gases that betray signs of biological activity."

Really? They say that?

Pray tell, which gasses are these?

ML/NJ

[Moonman62]

To get this resolution without the magnifying power of the Sun, we calculate that you would need a telescope with a diameter of about 75,000 kilometers, or about six times the diameter of the Earth. This is, to put it mildly, impractical.

...

No it wouldn’t.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_optical_interferometry

Using the sun for gravitational lensing would be far more impractical.