Life on Earth rests on a knife-edge of chemistry that could easily have tipped the other way. As geochemists reconstruct the planet’s birth, they are finding that a narrow band of oxygen conditions ...

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

The wonders of life on Earth are endless, but all that may never have come to pass were it not for the planet having the perfect amount of oxygen at birth.

The new plot twist is that in order to keep enough nitrogen and phosphorus near its surface, a planet has to start out with ...

A new study analyzes three asteroid and two meteorite samples to see if space rocks smacking into Earth could’ve helped ...

Earth’s habitability may trace back to a precise chemical balance during its formation, one that kept life-critical elements from disappearing into the core or drifting into space.

New method reveals chemical signs of early microbial life in ancient Earth rocks, showing photosynthesis evolved much earlier than believed.

Fossilized remnants of ancient carbon from the heart of South Africa's Mpumalanga province have just yielded the earliest chemical evidence yet of life on Earth. According to a new analysis using ...

As much as 45 oceans’ worth of hydrogen may be in Earth’s core, scientists reported, suggesting most of Earth’s water was ...

The chemicals that helped save the ozone layer may be quietly seeding the planet with an indestructible pollutant.

Scientists have discovered a fern from South China that naturally forms tiny crystals containing rare earth elements (REEs). This breakthrough opens the door to a promising new way of "green mining" ...