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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

A peculiar property of the Earth's magnetic field could help us to work out how our planet was created 4.5 billion years ago, according to a new scientific assessment. There are several theories about ...

Recent studies suggest Earth’s continents formed billions of years earlier than previously thought. A study published in Nature Communications reveals evidence of active tectonic processes during the ...

There are several theories about how the Earth and the Moon were formed, most involving a giant impact. They vary from a model where the impacting object strikes the newly formed Earth a glancing blow ...

New research suggests that essential components of life may assemble in interstellar space long before planets or oceans ...

A study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters posits that Mars formed in what today is the Asteroid Belt, roughly one and a half times as far from the sun as its current ...