If we find them, aliens would be, well, alien, right? Maybe not as alien as we think. In his book, zoologist Arik Kershenbaum makes the case for why what we know about animals on Earth could reveal what aliens might be like, too. *Season 2 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Li

Silvano Colombano, a long-time NASA scientist, argues that the search for extraterrestrial life makes some erroneous assumptions. We talk to him about what those assumptions are, why they might be wrong, and how we might think differently about the search. *Wild Thing premium members get access to all of season 2, ad f

UFOs, aliens, other-worldly beings—all have appeared in art over the centuries (including, possibly, in Renaissance-era paintings). But some of the most recent depictions appear in the works of Frank Buffalo Hyde, an Onondaga artist who uses UFOs to talk about tribal histories and lore. *Wild Thing premium members get

While we hypothesized about exoplanets for years, it wasn't until recently that we could confirm their existence. Astrophysicist and MIT professor Sara Seager has been at the leading edge of the search for exoplanets.  *Wild Thing premium members get access to all of season 2, ad free, plus early access to bonus interv

2020—already not a great year—was made worse for astronomers when the Arecibo Telescope collapsed in Puerto Rico. Abel Méndez, an astronomer who grew up in the telescope's shadow, talks about the importance of Arecibo and what future plans may bring. *Another way to support Wild Thing is through Supporting Cast, which

Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist who has worked on several Mars missions and is also the author of The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World. She talks to us about her book, the latest mission to the Red Planet—the Perseverance rover—and why our closest neighbor holds such fascination for us