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 ...

Earth and Mars were formed from material that largely originated in the inner Solar System; only a few percent of the building blocks of these two planets originated beyond Jupiter’s orbit. A group of ...

When we look at the solid ground beneath our feet, it's easy to assume Earth has always been this way. But our planet tells a story so extraordinary, so ...

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.

The history of Earth's continents might be different from what we first thought. The most popular theory of how the continents formed billions of years ago may not be right, according to a paper in ...

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 ...