The tiny pantheon known as the Asgard archaea bear traits that hint at how plants, animals and fungi emerged on Earth.

The group of rare earth elements (REEs) comprises a total of 17 elements, all of which possess similar chemical properties. In addition to the two lightest elements, scandium and yttrium, the group ...

The origin of life on Earth has always been a mystery. For many years, scientists have looked to the stars, believing that the building blocks of life that set forth evolution here on our planet came ...

Two of the most intriguing questions in science are: How did life on Earth begin? and Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Given the enormous interest in these questions, you might expect that the ...

The origin of life on Earth has been mulled over by scientists for centuries. We now know that life’s building blocks are RNA, amino acids, and cells. But if life originated from the primordial ooze ...

In a new book, astrophysicist Mario Livio describes how the existence of life on Earth can be traced back to an RNA-based “protocell.” The following is an excerpt from Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest ...

A new study reveals that the asteroid 2024 PT5, which has been orbiting Earth for 2 months, may have a "lunar origin." However, it is about to break free from our planet, making it tricky to tell for ...

Dr. Alice Stephant, an astrophysicist, is helping to solve a longstanding mystery about water on Earth: where it came from. Scientists long thought that water, which covers 70% of the Earth, is ...

Conventionally, the moon is thought to have formed during one big impact, but a three-impact model might make more sense ...

Our species likes it cold. Homo sapiens evolved in — and still inhabits — one of Earth’s rare and fragile ice ages, periods distinguished not by an abundance of saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths ...