After 20 years of moving steadily through the black of space, narrowly avoiding collisions

with high-speed dustmots and enduring freezing temperatures and intense radiation, the probe

neared its target.

A yellow dwarf star on the fringes of this galaxy, orbited by a series of rocky planets

and gas giants, but moving at the incredible speed of over 135 million miles an hour,

the probe, equipped with a microscopically small, rugged camera, would have mere seconds

to snap pictures before it flew past, back out into space, transmitting that data to

its home planet.

This is the sort of thing we imagine a mu-mu-mu-a might have been up to, traveling through the galaxy,

gathering data, looking at interesting stars, photographing unusual planets, seeing if

there actually is other life out there.

Now it's one thing to try and identify alien life from afar, and another thing entirely

to actually go and visit it.

That's a difficult plan to execute with a very long timeline, and it's one good argument

for why a mu-mu-a wouldn't be an alien light sail.

Then again, if you think about the amazing scientific work we're doing right here on Earth,

it might not be that far-fetched after all.

Some of the technology we're developing to look beyond this planet seems pretty out of

this world.

Giant telescopes that will make out potentially habitable planets within 20 light years of

Earth, and look for atmospheres that support life.

If we find a planet that has temperate conditions, the temperatures are such that you could

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