What the if you were born on the Moon and Earth was the alien planet? Picking up from last month's cliffhanger, our travelers from the lunar surface finally touch down — and nothing about this place is what they expected. There's some physics, some biology, a detour through ancient Greece, and a first encounter with the locals that nobody could have prepared for. The view from another world makes home look stranger than it has any right to. Settle in for the second half of a two-part thought experiment about what it's like to visit the planet everyone else calls home.

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When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/

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Keep On IFFin',

Philip, Matt & Gaby