The volume of the ocean, its average purity, and the chemical makeup of H₂O allow a simple estimate of the amount of hydrogen ...

Life on Earth may exist thanks to an incredible stroke of luck — a chemical sweet spot that most planets miss during their formation but ours managed to hit.

I asked my friend Julie Ménard how Earth formed. She’s a planetary scientist at Washington State University. She told me it started with the Big Bang. That was nearly 14 billion years ago. “The Big ...

Hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs, the tallest things on land were not trees or animals but towering, trunk-like ...

Old crystals found in Western Australia are drawing fresh attention from geologists studying how the planet first took shape.

NASA says Earth is about halfway through its lifespan. Scientists explain how solar changes could affect habitability, oceans, and the planet’s future over billions of years ...

Tectonic map of the Earth. The first continental crust on Earth formed more than 3 billion years ago. Likely the first fragments formed by partial melting and re-crystallization of the primordial ...

The origin of life on Earth is still enigmatic, but we are slowly unraveling the steps involved and the necessary ingredients. Scientists believe life arose in a primordial soup of organic chemicals ...

Our Solar System is believed to have formed from a cloud of gas and dust, the so-called solar nebula, which began to condense on itself gravitationally ~ 4.6 billion years ago. As this cloud ...

A fresh look at past data reveals that exoplanets with masses similar to Jupiter formed much sooner than previously thought, according to new research. The Ohio State University study's results ...

What does it take to make an Earth-like planet? It takes a stellar nursery rich in carbon, oxygen, iron, and silicon in a combination that’s not too much, and not too little, but just right. But these ...