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 ...

Life on Earth may exist thanks to an incredible stroke of luck — a chemical sweet spot that most planets miss during their formation but ours managed to hit. A new study shows that Earth formed under ...

Recent research by Chinese scientists explains how deposits of rare earth elements (REE) are formed, proving that the emplacement depth (pressure) of carbonatitic magma is a key factor controlling the ...

Water has made the Earth the planet that it is—a planet known for its blue oceans. Water shapes the land through erosion and is fundamental to Earth’s ability to support life. But we have a hard time ...

Helium-3, a rare isotope of helium gas, is leaking out of Earth’s core, a new study reports. Because almost all helium-3 is from the Big Bang, the gas leak adds evidence that Earth formed inside a ...

Researchers have unveiled that myriad, intricate factors influence the genesis and chemistry of bastnasite and rare earth carbonates, which are critically needed for today's tech industry and its ...

Tectonic map of the Earth. The first continental crust on Earth formed more than 3 billion years ago. Likely the first fragments formed by partial melting and re-crystallization of the primordial ...

New research sheds light on the earliest days of the earth's formation and potentially calls into question some earlier assumptions in planetary science about the early years of rocky planets.

For decades, many scientists believed that most of the water in our planet came from space, transported by meteorites and comets during the first moments of ...