Grab-and-go missions to asteroids have provided some of the most scientifically valuable samples since the Apollo missions—and they’re shaking up the search for life beyond Earth.

The origin of the first living molecules on our planet has long been debated. However, recent experiments are revealing new ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared.

A giant impact on the early Earth could have brought the building blocks of RNA to our planet, which new research suggests could have quickly formed in the presence of compounds called borates. When ...

Talk about a sugar rush! NASA may have just come a little closer to cracking one of science’s most enduring mysteries — how life on Earth got started. The space agency has reportedly discovered ...

In an investigation to find out what sparked life on Earth, researchers have discovered that RNA formed through surprisingly ...

New experiments suggest RNA, life’s essential molecule, could have formed naturally on early Earth and even arrived from space, raising intriguing questions about how easily life might begin elsewhere ...

Scientists have long been probing the universe to determine how elements came together to form planets and (at least in Earth’s case) gave rise to life. One disconnect was that the universe contained ...

the Earth you walk on today might not be the same planet that was born 4.5 billion years ago. Many scientists believe that in its infancy, Earth collided with another world the size of Mars, and that ...

Seán Jordan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...