How life on Earth could help us find life on Mars

In our continuing search for other life in the universe, one place has always looked promising—Mars. It is a rocky planet like Earth, orbiting the same star, and at a distance where water could have been present on the ...

Scientists use fossils to discover the ancient equator

(Phys.org)—Researchers at Western University have discovered where the equator was "precisely located" 450 million years ago, which is an important breakthrough for paleontologists and planetary scientists, as well as private ...

Mountain on Mars may answer big question

The Martian volcano Olympus Mons is about three times the height of Mount Everest, but it's the small details that Rice University professors Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan are looking at in thinking about whether the ...

How hot were the oceans when life first evolved?

We know little about Earth's surface temperatures for the first 4 billion years or so of its history. This presents a limitation into research of life's origins on Earth and also how it might arise on distant worlds as well.

Rocks show Mars once felt like Iceland

Once upon a time, seasons in Gale Crater probably felt something like those in Iceland. But nobody was there to bundle up more than 3 billion years ago.

Stepping stones through time

Stromatolites are the most ancient fossils on Earth, and these structures built by microbes can still be found forming today in various places around the globe. Although they provide a straight line of life’s history ...

Earth's oldest-known rocks provide clues about early tectonics

Earth is currently the only planet known to harbor life—thanks in large part due to the operation of plate tectonics, which cycles critical biogeochemical elements and maintains a planetary thermostat. Subduction—the ...

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