life on earth, life-giving carbon, mercury, mercury-like planet, planetary collision, silicon valley visas, sulfur

Element Ratios Suggest Earth Collided With a Mercury-Like Planet

Research by Rice University Earth scientists suggests that virtually all of Earth’s life-giving carbon could have come from a collision about 4.4 billion years ago between Earth and an embryonic planet similar to Mercury. In a new study this week in Nature Geoscience, Rice petrologist Rajdeep Dasgupta and colleagues offer a new answer to a long-debated geological question: ...

Troy Oakes

Planet Earth viewed from orbit.

Study Says Life Began on Earth at Least 4.1 Billion Years Ago

Geochemists have found evidence that life on Earth could have started 300 million years earlier than previously thought. Researchers believe that life may have started 4.1 billion years ago, which means it is older than the asteroid bombardments that scarred the Moon — making it nearly as old as the 4.54 billion-year-old planet itself. Mark Harrison, ...

Troy Oakes

Earth as seen from outer space.