A remarkably hardy bacterium can survive pressures similar to those generated when asteroid impacts blast debris off Mars, a ...

"Life is always hardier than we expect it to be." The post Scientists Find Microbes Can Survive Traveling from Planet to ...

Tiny life forms tucked into debris from an asteroid hit could catapult to other planets—including Earth—and survive, a new ...

In this thought-provoking talk, biologist Betül Kaçar explores a radical idea: what if humans could spark life on other planets? By studying ancient DNA and recreating early chemical environments in ...

Scientists tested whether microbes can survive the shock of a planetary impact and found some may endure the violent launch into space.

Around 2.3 billion years ago, the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) marked a major turning point in Earth’s history. The increase ...

Life needs nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. But without the right balance of oxygen, these elements get locked away in planets’ cores.

The idea that life can spread from world to world dates as far back as ancient Greece and the philosopher Anaxagoras.

Scientists are trying to understand how complex life emerged on Earth about 2 billion years ago. Our microbial ancestors could be the key.

Chalk up another victory for “Conan the Bacterium”—a rugged germ that fresh research suggests could conquer the solar system. Better known as Deinococcus radiodurans, this microbe is arguably the ...

Houchin and his colleagues studied dozens of zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia. These are the oldest ...

There are many open questions about how our planet formed 4.55 billion years ago: When did plate tectonics start? When did the Earth's mantle begin to vigorously circulate in a process called ...