The history of Earth is written on the great tablets of tectonic plates. The motions of plates shaped land masses, formed oceans, and created the varied climates and habitats that set the stage for ...

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 ...

The solid inner core at the center of the Earth, surrounded by the outer core, mantle and crust. Here’s why: While it is well known that a material must be at or below its freezing temperature to be ...

Blue oceans, green forests, a cozy blanket of oxygen. Our planet is a super comfy home. It’s hard to imagine there was ever a time it didn’t exist. I asked my friend Julie Ménard how Earth formed. She ...

Crystals hidden in Australia’s oldest rocks have revealed new clues about how Earth and the Moon formed. The study suggests Earth’s continents didn’t begin growing until hundreds of millions of years ...

Billions of years ago, in the giant disk of dust, gas, and rocky material that orbited our young sun, larger and larger bodies coalesced to eventually give rise to the planets, moons, and asteroids we ...

Today, more than 70% of Earth is covered in liquid water. But long before the sea became a familiar feature of our planet’s surface, the water that now fills our oceans, lakes, and streams was ...