Hazen’s findings came at an auspicious time. “A few years before, we would have been laughed out of the origins-of-life community,” he says. But NASA, then starting up its astrobiology program, was ...

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

To celebrate the groundbreaking research of 2025 Drake Award recipients Dr. David Deamer and Dr. John Baross, the SETI Institute commissioned bioartist Dr. Jennifer Willet to create a unique artwork ...

The questions of how humankind came to be, and whether we are alone in the universe, have captured imaginations for millennia. But to answer these questions, scientists must first understand life ...

The origin of the first living molecules on our planet has long been debated. However, recent experiments are revealing new information about the plausible conditions on the early Earth. This research ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spent two years observing the asteroid Bennu before it collected a ...

How did the building blocks of life come together to spawn the first organisms? It’s one of the most longstanding questions in biology — and scientists just got a major clue. In a new study published ...

When and where did life on Earth begin? What ingredients does the recipe for life require? Is there life out there beyond the stars, and if so, did it arise in the same way? Or are we alone in the ...

Oceans churned with lava. Air filled thick with smoke. Asteroids stormed down incessantly. Life during the Hadean Eon four billion years ago was a struggle, and yet that was when it began. 1,2 With no ...

Caroline Lynn Kamerlin receives funding from the NASA Exobiology program. Liam Longo receives funding from the NASA Exobiology program. The questions of how humankind came to be, and whether we are ...

Grab-and-go missions to asteroids have provided some of the most scientifically valuable samples since the Apollo missions—and they’re shaking up the search for life beyond Earth. The OSIRIS-REx ...