A pair of new studies suggest that key steps toward life’s chemistry may begin long before planets exist. Experiments ...

Life evolved from simple geochemical processes present on the early Earth. However, the details of this transformation remain a mystery. In this study, researchers modeled the emergence of metabolic ...

Yet another tantalizing clue. The post NASA Running Out of Non-Life Explanations for What Its Rover Found on Mars appeared ...

A team of researchers has just demonstrated that essential molecular chains, peptides, can form spontaneously on cosmic dust grains, meaning in space. This result changes our understanding of ...

This isn’t the famous sample reported last September, but another with different signs of past life we’re struggling to ...

WASHINGTON – Stick a shovel in the ground and scoop. That’s about how deep scientists need to go in order to find evidence for ancient life on Mars, if there is any to be found, a new study suggests.

There are 20 amino acids that create the proteins required for life on our planet — and scientists have now found exactly 14 of them on an asteroid millions of miles away. The asteroid in question, ...

A complex form of carbon crucial for life on Earth has been spotted outside the solar system for the first time. Its presence helps show how the compounds needed for life could come from space. The ...

A team of scientists just discovered the longest organic molecules yet seen on Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun and and a tantalizing venue for humankind’s search for life beyond Earth. Mars today ...

Consider your hands. They are essentially identical in every respect bar one: They are mirror images of each other. Many of the molecules of life, such as proteins and DNA, have the same property.