The dazzling lights of the aurora are created when high-energy particles from space collide with Earth's atmosphere. While ...

A long-standing idea in planetary science is that water-rich meteorites arriving late in Earth’s history could have delivered ...

A new international study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters reveals that the boundaries between geological epochs and periods, even though randomly distributed, follow a hidden, ...

Sometimes to truly study something up close, you have to take a step back. That's what Andrea Donnellan does. An expert in Earth sciences and seismology, she gets much of her data from a bird's-eye ...

Andy Weir’s bestselling story The Martian predicts that by 2035 NASA will have landed humans on Mars three times, perfected return-to-Earth flight systems and collaborated with the China National ...

Gary Glatzmaier, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his excellence in original scientific research.

Researchers discovered a new field of ancient tektites in South Australia, revealing a long-forgotten asteroid impact. These 11-million-year-old glass fragments differ chemically and geographically ...

Scientists are trying to understand why the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere changed by about 90 parts per million (ppmv) between icy (glacial) and warmer (interglacial) periods in Earth’s history.

At the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest, one tectonic plate is moving underneath another. New experimental work at UC Davis shows how rocks on faults deep in the Earth can cement ...

I’m a planetary scientist who was born the year of Sputnik’s launch. Over the course of my 40-year career, I’ve witnessed not one but at least five separate revolutions that fundamentally transformed ...