origin of life

The new experiment relied on a cannon that can shoot marbles at speeds of more than 11,000 miles per hour.

"As a little girl, I always knew it was nonsense when the U.S. didn't have women astronauts. In fact, it really pissed me off," she said.

"It's like a little cradle inside of the rock."

Bursts of energetic particles could have helped build the bonds to sustain life.

New technology and new missions are making it more likely every day we'll finally spot life beyond Earth.

The evidence makes life elsewhere look likelier than ever.

Martian life could lie deep below the surface.

The prokaryotic fossils represent the planet's oldest-known form of life.

Molten rock deep below Earth's surface could have been crucial to life taking off.

What do model trains and a common household chemical have to do with the beginning of life?

A scientist on the team behind the discovery compares the compound to the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella."

The new approach provides a simple solution to a long-perplexing problem.

"I have no idea how life started on Earth," Zare said. "I wasn't there."

Nucleotides form the building blocks of life—but where they came from has been a longstanding mystery.