A century ago, they’d launched the probe, hoping for the best. Now it would be landing on the first extrasolar planet.
The calculations had been promising, but there were so many unknowns. The ten lightyear gap made sending corrections impossible.
Humanity waited for images of the probe’s landing. It had been a symbol of hope at a time when the odds that we would survive the hundred-year journey seemed slim.
At the time they’d only had spectrography to go by, but the crew picked a rocky planet in the star’s ‘goldilocks zone.’ They couldn’t have know there would be wildflowers.

“Hubble Friday – Heavy Metal Stars” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

My very short story collection, The Mountain’s Shadow is available now from Amazon and Smashwords!

Everyday Drabbles © 2024 by Hugh J. O’Donnell is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0