Changes in Earth's orbit have helped pace climatic change for millennia. Scientists are now trying to understand whether - and how - these changes remodeled the landscapes our ancient ancestors ...

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.

Late-stage planetary collisions reshaped Earth and its neighboring planets, delivering water, altering their atmospheres, and ...

During a brief but dramatic chapter in Earth's history about 41,000 years ago, the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed. What followed was a cascade of environmental and biological changes that ...

The story of two of the strangest animals on the planet just got a little stranger, thanks to clues revealed by a lone fossil specimen that scientists now say represents a long-extinct ancestor. The ...

Watch the Earth's tectonic plates grow, shrink, and jostle for position in this new model of the last billion years on the planet.