Words, names, and even acronyms have power and history behind them. The acronym ‘UFO’ is a highly loaded one, and has (obviously) accrued so much stigma over the years. ‘UAP’ is an attempt at a clean slate for branding. Let’s see how long that will last.
The UAP session recently held by the Mexican government has already attempted to tarnish the new tag for UFO - what with them legitimizing Maussan the alien hoax peddler by making him a keynote speaker…
Also, solar sail spacecraft. Building craft or probes that can travel nearly as fast as light may still seem like science fiction, but it’s been proposed. They would require no rocket propellant and could hypothetically reach Alpha Centauri (the nearest star system 4 light years away) in about 20 years.
That said, even with that technology the planet in the NYT article is 120 light years away… But I’d bet my left foot that the AC system also has habitable planets.
The definition of habitable often used is ridiculously limited to our Earth view of life.
They should qualify it as possibly habitable by life as we know it.
Intelligent life is probably 99% artificial out there amongst the stars.