When you hear about planetary transits and movements, it might sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. The planets are always moving, and just like the moon affects the tides, these celestial ...

To support alien life, a planet doesn’t have to be exactly like Earth, but it does need a few key ingredients. First, it ...

Life on Earth may exist thanks to an incredible stroke of luck — a chemical sweet spot that most planets miss during their ...

The new plot twist is that in order to keep enough nitrogen and phosphorus near its surface, a planet has to start out with ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Some exoplanets, like the one shown in this illustration, may have atmospheres that could make them potentially suitable for life.

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store ...

The wonders of life on Earth are endless, but all that may never have come to pass were it not for the planet having the perfect amount of oxygen at birth.

Earth’s habitability may trace back to a precise chemical balance during its formation, one that kept life-critical elements from disappearing into the core or drifting into space.

Our planet is sick, and its life-threatening symptoms are getting worse, a new report warns. Earth has been pushed past multiple physical and chemical boundaries crucial for keeping the world a ...

A liquid phase facilitates chemical reactions, something that has been known empirically for centuries. As a solvent, a liquid allows dissolved reactants to encounter each other at rates that are ...