We know of Mars as the red planet, for its surface and atmosphere is caked in endless swirling dust of rusted iron, the rusting action provided by the always-eager oxygen. But this was not always so.

Our planet sits in the habitable zone of our sun, the special place where water can be liquid on the surface of a world. But that's not the only thing special about us.

We do not yet know how, where, or why life first appeared on our planet. Part of the difficulty is that “life” has no strict, universally agreed-upon definition.

New research led by Stanford University scientists predicts life can persist in extremely salty environments, beyond the limit previously thought possible.

A team of chemists and planetary scientists have found evidence that a form of life that uses sulfuric acid as a liquid medium could exist in some of the clouds covering Venus.

The Earth is a wonderful blue and green dot covered with oceans and life, while Venus is a yellowish sterile sphere that is not only inhospitable but also sterile. However, the difference between the two is only a few degrees in temperature.

We all know that to have life on a world, you need three critical items: water, warmth, and food. Now add to that a factor called “entropy.” It plays a role in determining if a given planet can sustain and grow complex life.

In the quest to understand how and where life might arise in the galaxy, astronomers search for its building blocks. Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) are some of those blocks.

New analysis of data from the Curiosity rover reveals that much of the craters on Mars today could have once been habitable rivers.

A study is helping scientists better understand the history of genome organization and how such systems have evolved through time following the origins of life on Earth.