Micrometeorites raining down from space may have provided the perfect surfaces for the first primitive cells to form on Earth ...

Before the rise of dinosaurs, Earth was a vastly different place, teeming with life in forms that were strange and unlike ...

Canadian scientists found the oldest known rocks on Earth - dating back 4.16 billion years - shedding light on our planet’s ...

If the new age of these Canadian rocks is solid, they would be the first and only ones known to have survived Earth’s earliest, tumultuous time.

Chemists at UCL and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have demonstrated how RNA (ribonucleic acid) might have replicated itself on early Earth—a key process in the origin of life.

The earliest days of Earth held secrets that scientists are still trying to uncover. One of the greatest mysteries is how life began.

STANFORD, Calif. — Every splash of water on Earth might be creating microscopic lightning bolts—and this electrical phenomenon could have sparked the chemistry of life itself. Stanford ...

Emerging evidence suggests that plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth's crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought — and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life.

Before we can even crudely estimate the likelihood of life beyond Earth, we need to know a lot more about how life on Earth got started.

Until recently, many discounted the idea that life could have existed on Earth before 3.8 billion years ago because it was thought that heavy pummelling from asteroids would have made this impossible.

The tinfoil-covered vial at right holds about four grams of an asteroid brought to Earth from deep space. It may also hold the key to how life began here. The vial at left holds ground-up quartz ...