Bacteria are the most diverse organisms on Earth, with a number of species that’s difficult to quantify. They’re also incredibly old. Bacteria consist of a single cell. They do not have bones and are ...

Stars that pass by our solar system have altered the long-term orbital evolution of planets, including Earth, and, by extension, modified our climate. "Perturbations—a minor deviation in the course of ...

The Cambrian Explosion in which life on Earth underwent massive diversification was likely triggered by eccentricities in Earth’s orbit around our Sun. Or so say the authors of a new paper just ...

Giant-impact driven redox processes in the atmosphere and magma ocean may have played crucial roles during the evolution of the Earth. However, the absence of rock records from the time or era makes ...

Terrestrial planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—formed by the accretion of smaller objects. The Earth was probably the latest terrestrial planet to form and reached about 99% of its final mass ...

A new SwRI-led paper highlights the scientific progress made in understanding the evolution of terrestrial planets, including the effects of late large impacts on pre-existing modes of tectonics. For ...

Oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans played a pivotal role in the evolution of the surface environment and life. It is thought that the rise in oxygen over Earth’s history was driven by an ...

Late-stage planetary collisions reshaped Earth and its neighboring planets, delivering water, altering their atmospheres, and influencing their tectonics. New findings suggest these violent impacts ...

“Using a bombardment history model to infer the cumulative effects of recurring impacts, we estimate that the upper 5-mile (8-kilometer) shell of the Earth’s crust likely was highly permeable 4.3 ...