Researchers recreated conditions from billions of years ago and found that Earth’s young atmosphere could make key molecules linked to life. These sulfur-rich compounds, including certain amino acids, ...

For decades, scientists believed that a vast stretch of Earth’s early history unfolded under stable and uneventful conditions. That assumption is now being challenged by an extraordinary discovery ...

4.5 billion years ago was an interesting time for Earth. The atmosphere was thick and what we would now think of as toxic. The moon, which was freshly formed, looks much more massive than it does ...

Earth’s atmosphere might have contributed to the origin of life more than previously thought. In a study published Dec. 1 in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," CU Boulder ...

Manganese dioxide can convert amino acids into hydrogen cyanide (HCN) without requiring methane, a finding that solves a long-standing puzzle about the origin of this key prebiotic molecule on early ...

Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot springs, ...

We know Earth formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago and that the first single cell lifeforms were present roughly 1 billion years after that. What we don’t know is what triggered the process that ...

The oldest evidence of Earth's ancient atmosphere may be lurking in rocks from the moon, a new study suggests. That's the takeaway from a new analysis of moon rocks that Apollo astronauts brought back ...