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Lasers can help scientists to launch interstellar space probes, according to Popular Science. As they have reached an advanced state of technology, researchers predict that a gram-sized laser-propelled space probe can overshoot the speed of light by 25 percent and reach for the nearest star, after more research in two decades.

This cannot be reached with standard propulsion technology, believes Philip Lubin, an experimental cosmologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). But it can be done with lasers. Small probes can increase to reach near-light speeds and touch stars in a lifetime.

"No other current technology offers a realistic path forward to relativistic flight at the moment," he said.

His team is designing a road map to create laser arrays in orbit that can launch probes to nearby star systems, and also spacecraft-sized cargos to planets.

Unlike spacecraft thrusters that use propellant with mass, photon drives use spacecraft with mirrors, which utilize remote light sources for propulsion. The breakthroughs in laser technology may help spacecraft to touch "relativistic speeds".

"There is no known reason why we cannot do this, except for NASA budget reasons," Lubin said.

With the focus on lasers, there is a new speculation: Perhaps alien civilizations are harnessing lasers to help explore the cosmos, reports UCSB's Cosmology Group.