Mumbai: A little girl today brought a smile on the face of Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams with a very down-to-earth question and got a hug in return.

"I have one question. Can I come up on the stage and meet you?," 12-year-old Simran Bhosale asked Williams at a function here when she was fielding questions on radiation in space, the path to becoming an astronaut and life in space.

Williams promptly agreed and the little girl made her way through photojournalists and security persons to meet the woman she considers her idol. They hugged and spoke briefly even as flashbulbs popped around them after which Simran, a resident of Satara district in Maharashtra, was escorted to her seat. "I told her she will be the next astronaut," Williams said.

Simran, who had come with her parents said she had never thought she would meet Williams. "I have come for this function with my parents and did not even have an invite card," Simran said.

Williams, who spent 195 days aboard the International Space Station and conducted six spacewalks, received queries on coping with space, meteorites and radiation from solar flares while she interacted with college and school students at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay.

Asked if she saw any aliens in space, Williams joked,"I did see something in space, but cannot tell you about it." The astronaut, who holds the record for the maximum time spent in space by a woman, said she did not want to stifle thoughts on the subject since there was always the probability that another planet also had life on it.