The solid inner core at the center of the Earth, surrounded by the outer core, mantle and crust. Here’s why: While it is well known that a material must be at or below its freezing temperature to be ...

Computational modeling shows that plate tectonics weren't necessary for early continents. The formation of Earth's continents billions of years ago set the stage for life to thrive. But scientists ...

Over 4.6 billion years ago, Earth took shape from a spinning cloud of dust and gas surrounding the young sun. Tiny particles within this cloud collided and clumped together, driven by gravity and ...

Crystals hidden in Australia’s oldest rocks have revealed new clues about how Earth and the Moon formed. The study suggests Earth’s continents didn’t begin growing until hundreds of millions of years ...

Deep beneath our feet, far beyond the reach of any drill, new research suggests that Earth’s center is far more intricate than a simple metal ball. Instead of a single solid sphere, the inner core ...

Billions of years ago, in the giant disk of dust, gas, and rocky material that orbited our young sun, larger and larger bodies coalesced to eventually give rise to the planets, moons, and asteroids we ...

Thomas Gernon receives funding from the WoodNext Foundation, a component fund administered by the Greater Houston Community Foundation. In 2005, I was navigating winding roads through the Drakensberg ...

A number of hypotheses have been used to explain how free oxygen first accumulated in Earth’s atmosphere some 2.4 billion years ago, but a full understanding has proven elusive. Now a new model offers ...