Before sunlight ever reached the planet, another force may have sparked life—electricity. Deep beneath the ocean floor, ...

Hidden deep in ancient rocks, scientists have found the surviving traces of Earth’s first form—unchanged for 4.5 billion ...

Moroccan rocks reveal that Earth’s magnetic field once changed fast but followed a hidden order, helping scientists map ...

Artist's impression of early Earth. Huge, impact-generated lava lakes coexisted with surface liquid water, under a thick greenhouse atmosphere sustained by lava outgassing. (Credit: SwRI/Simone Marchi ...

Methane could form much more easily, and much more widely, on early Earth than scientists previously realized, according to a recent study in the journal Nature. The chemical compound, made of carbon ...

Water has made the Earth the planet that it is—a planet known for its blue oceans. Water shapes the land through erosion and is fundamental to Earth’s ability to support life. But we have a hard time ...

A research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), along ...

Millions of lightning strikes may have been just what life needed to begin on Earth, according to a new study. One of the key ingredients needed for life as we know it is phosphorus – and the ...

The study of young stars like EK Draconis has offered fresh insights into the violent activity of our Sun in its youth. By ...

Chemists discovered how cyanide could have enabled chemical reactions that metabolize carbon dioxide without the complex proteins used by living organisms today. Today, the colorless and deadly gas ...