Around 2.3 billion years ago, the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) marked a major turning point in Earth’s history. The increase ...

Helium-3 dating reveals new plankton species emerged within thousands—and sometimes just 2,000—years after the dinosaur-killing impact, showing life recovered far faster than assumed.

Houchin and his colleagues studied dozens of zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia. These are the oldest ...

There are many open questions about how our planet formed 4.55 billion years ago: When did plate tectonics start? When did the Earth's mantle begin to vigorously circulate in a process called ...

Hardy bacteria in a lab survived pressures comparable to an asteroid strike on the red planet, suggesting a hypothetical scenario in which our planet was seeded with life.

Tiny life forms tucked into debris from an asteroid hit could catapult to other planets—including Earth—and survive, a new ...

Around 1.7 billion years ago, eukaryotes—the building blocks of complex life—first appeared on Earth, and now scientists have ...

Here's a thought experiment that keeps planetary scientists awake at night. Strip every living thing from our planet, every bacterium, every blade of grass, every creature that has ever drawn breath ...

Explore ancient dinosaur tracks at Red Fleet State Park, Utah, where footprints from the Early Jurassic period offer a ...

There were schools of thought in Ancient Greece that speculated about extraterrestrial life, in trying to answer questions ...