Before Earth became the blue planet, it was engulfed by a very different kind of ocean: a vast, deep magma ocean reaching down hundreds or perhaps even thousands of kilometers. As early Earth's magma ...

As energy from the sun reaches Earth, some solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, leading to chemical reactions like the formation of ozone and the breakup of gas molecules. A new approach for ...

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 ...

Our Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and, through careful work, scientists have pieced together a timeline of its past. But much of its earliest history remains a mystery. Scant geological ...

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 ...

Tiny bits of Earth’s atmosphere have been drifting to the moon for billions of years, guided by Earth’s magnetic field. Rather than blocking particles, the magnetic field can funnel them along ...