Image of Ryugu taken by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft in 2018.
JAXA/wikipedia
We may be on the brink of discovering whether water and organic material, which enabled life on Earth, came from asteroids.
An area on the summit of the West Mata Volcano erupting in 2009.
NOAA / NSF / WHOI
Volcanic eruptions on the seafloor are mysterious, but new research provides fresh clues.
Image of the fireball in 28 February.
UK Meteor Observation Network
It looks like a broken barbeque brickette, but the newfound meteorite is a capsule of the Solar System’s history that could reveal the secrets of the origin of life.
Artist impression of Hayabusa 2 approaching asteroid Ryugu.
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)/wikipedia
If the building blocks of life were present at the time that Earth was born, this could mean life is common in the universe.
Tobias Stierli / NCCR PlanetS
Unlike our hellish neighbour Venus, Earth was far enough from the Sun for liquid water to form and create a more hospitable environment for life.
Purple microbial mats offer clues to how ancient life functioned.
Pieter Visscher
How ancient microbes survived in a world without oxygen has been a mystery. Scientists discovered a living microbial mat that uses arsenic instead of oxygen for photosynthesis and respiration.
Axel_Kock/Shutterstock
We don’t fully understand viruses, and we’re still trying to understand life.
Deep ocean hydrothermal vent - where life started?
IFE / URI-IAO / UW / Lost City Science Party / NOAA / OAR / OER
Scientists have for the first time created shown how the precursor to living cells could have formed around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
NASA
Humans evolved through a series of highly unlikely events – so finding another intelligence like us would be like winning the lottery many times over.
Earthrise.
NASA
Current plans for lunar exploration may end up destroying ancient, genetic samples from Earth that have ended up on the moon.
Earth’s Pacific Ocean seen from the International Space Station.
NASA
Genetic data has helped scientists develop new estimates for the origin and evolution of life on Earth.
Shutterstock
New research suggests life on Earth became more diverse because of a change in biology related to stem cells, not just rising oxygen levels.
The comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, seen up close.
ESA/Rosetta/NavCam
Dust can be instructive. The analysis of those collected around the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko provided new information on the history of the solar system.
Tubular fossils believed to represent early microbes.
Matthew Dodd
Tiny tubes and filaments of iron found in rocks in Canada turned out to be the remains of microbes from over 3.7 billion years ago.
Shutterstock
New research suggests how asteroids may have helped create conditions for life on Earth. But we shouldn’t get too carried away with the idea – yet.
NOAA Photo Library/Flickr
New research suggests the “primordial soup” theory can’t explain how living cells evolved to harness energy.
Grand Prismatic Spring and Midway Geyser Basin from above.
Brocken Inaglory/wikimedia
Scientists have uncovered genes they believe have been passed down from an ancestor organism that all life evolved from.
The molecules that make up life may have arrived from space, and many are chiral.
NASA / Jenny Mottar
A new theory could explain why the key molecules of life - DNA and RNA - only come in one of two possible forms.
Solar flare on August 31, 2012.
NASA
Life on Earth may have started with a bit of sunshine and showers, followed with a light breeze of laughing gas and a sprinkle of hydrogen cyanide.
Artist’s impression.
Don Davis (work commissioned by NASA)
Study suggests that comets and meteorites could have seeded planets beyond our own solar system with life.