Some periods in Earth's history are so different from our own that they may as well belong to another planet. Many people are ...

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 ...

For roughly 2 billion years of Earth's early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required for complex life. Oxygen began building up during the period known as the ...

Earth is the only planet known to support life. Learn about what Earth is made of and where it came from. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how ...

Researchers investigated the Mesozoic Era's atmosphere and vegetation by studying oxygen isotopes in dinosaur tooth enamel. This is a replica of a Stan™ T. rex tooth. Photograph: Thomas Tütken.

The Earth’s atmosphere is experiencing an accelerated rate of atmospheric escape, leading to a faster loss of gases into space than previously observed. This revelation, founded on recent scientific ...

Our species likes it cold. Homo sapiens evolved in — and still inhabits — one of Earth’s rare and fragile ice ages, periods distinguished not by an abundance of saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths ...

If you have seen a bright light streak across the sky, you have likely seen a meteor. Meteors are rocks from space that hit Earth's atmosphere and are commonly referred to as falling stars or shooting ...